Laura Benanti has slammed her former Broadway co-star Zachary Levi over feedback he made concerning the latest dying of their late colleague, Gavin Creel.

Benanti, 45, and the Shazam! star, 44, co-led the wildly profitable revival of the musical She Loves Me in 2016 alongside Creel, who died in September on the age of 48 from most cancers.

Benanti spoke about her emotions in the direction of Levi throughout this week’s episode of That’s a Homosexual Ass Podcast, hosted by Eric Williams.

“I by no means preferred [Levi]. Everybody was like, ‘He’s so nice!’ And I used to be like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s sucking up all of the f***ing vitality on this room. He desires to mansplain all people’s half to them,’” Benanti stated.

“He actually sucked all people in together with his dance get together vitality, like, ‘We’re doing a dance get together at half-hour.’ I used to be like, ‘Good luck, have enjoyable.’”

Throughout a pro-Donald Trump rant on Instagram Stay in October, Levi baselessly recommended that Creel’s dying might have been tied to Covid vaccinations.

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The Tony Award winner’s dying was attributable to a metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a sort of nerve most cancers that the actor realized he had in July.

“I do know that that is going to offend some individuals and make some individuals mad, and I want it didn’t. A couple of weeks in the past, my good friend Gavin Creel died. He was 48 years previous, and he was one of many healthiest individuals I knew. … You higher imagine that, with every part in me, I imagine that if these COVID vaccinations weren’t compelled on the American public…” Levi stated earlier than trailing off.

The American Most cancers Society and the Nationwide Most cancers Institute have each debunked theories that the Covid vaccine causes most cancers.

Talking about Levi spreading the misinformation, an emotional Benanti advised Williams: “For him to make use of Gavin’s reminiscence — an individual he was not associates with — to make use of his reminiscence for his political agenda and to observe him attempt to make himself cry till he had one single tear, which he didn’t wipe away, I used to be like, ‘F*** you endlessly.’”

Levi was broadly criticized by different Broadway stars on the time. Depraved alum Jenna Leigh Inexperienced wrote within the feedback of Levi’s publish: “Gavin deserved higher. What has occurred to you to have flown so removed from decency and sanity? It’s simply so unhappy.”

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“So extremely disillusioned you’ll politicize Gavin’s dying,” wrote two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz. “Actually tried to provide the profit right here. Made it midway via, which was exhausting as hell. However was totally heartbroken, as he would have been, that you just felt the necessity to use his life and legacy to advertise this terrible platform.”

In September, Levi endorsed Trump for president after his first alternative, anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr., dropped out of the race.

Showing on the Republican’s rally in Michigan, the DC actor stated: “We’re right here to make it possible for we’re going to take again this nation, we’re going to make it nice once more, we’re going to make it wholesome once more. And so, I stand with Bobby, and I stand with Tulsi, and I stand with everybody else who’s standing with President Trump. As a result of I do imagine, of the 2 decisions that now we have, and we solely have two, Donald Trump, President Trump is the person that may get us there. And he’s gonna get us there as a result of he’s gonna have the backing and the assist and the knowledge and the information and the combat that exists in Robert Kennedy Jr and former consultant Tulsi Gabbard.”

In January 2023, two months earlier than the discharge of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Levi shocked followers together with his response to a tweet asking if Covid-19 vaccine maker Pfizer was “an actual hazard to the world.”

“Hardcore agree,” he wrote.

Whereas the primary Shazam! (2019) movie was warmly obtained, the second was such a important and monetary bomb that the movie’s director David F Sandberg vowed to go away the world of superheroes behind.

Levi subsequently made various public statements decrying the therapy Fury of the Gods obtained from critics.