Dianna Agron Addresses Rumor She Was "Barred" From Cory Monteith's Glee Tribute Episode

Dianna Agron is shutting down a longstanding rumor surrounding her time on Glee.
 
After her co-star Cory Monteith's tragic death in 2013, the hit series honored his legacy with the "Quarterback" episode dedicated to the actor that October. And while his then-girlfriend Lea Michele and Naya Rivera were among the cast members featured in the touching tribute, Dianna—who played his character's ex-girlfriend and fellow Glee Club member—was MIA.
 
Her absence, in turn, led to speculation that she had been "barred" from participating at the time. It's an accusation that the 37-year-old shares is simply "not true."

"I think there are so many false pieces of information out there," Dianna told Rolling Stone in an article published May 7. "That's the weirdest thing that you have to learn in this industry—you don't comment on things that are untrue, because that gives them more space. Maybe at the end of my career I'll write a book and go into detail on everything that was very true and very untrue."

As for what other details may just be in that book if it were to be written? Her time as a 22-year-old starring on a TV phenomenon.

"It does feel strange because we were such young people," the Shiva Baby actress continued. "If I see footage of myself from that period, I see my youth and I see the heart and community and family we had with each other. It's emotional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and career-affirming. That experience opened up so many doors, and I'm so grateful that that's how I learned everything."

As she explained, nostalgic memories of her time on-set were brought to the surface as she filmed Netflix's The Chosen One in 2022.

"The boy who plays my son is 13 years old, and him and his friends, who are this Goonies/Stand by Me little bunch, they are all between the ages of 13 and 16, and they hadn't acted before," Dianna noted. "Watching them interact with each other, I was reminded of the curiosity, enthusiasm, intrigue, and discovery that we had on Glee. It allowed me to reflect a lot on it."

This included looking back at what was it was like to be a young woman in the spotlight, a factor she noted was a "sliding scale of appropriate to terribly inappropriate."

And some of this stemmed by how people perceived her based on her character Quinn, a popular cheerleader, on the Fox show.

"Especially if you're playing a character who people find to be attractive, or you are a young person who people find to be fit in a box that they would like to put you in, which is ‘young and sexy,'" she added. "That was the hardest thing for me to reconcile with. I was a pretty nerdy kid and not much has changed, so I didn't ever really feel comfortable dolling up or expressing my sexuality in that way, because I didn't even fully understand how I felt about my own sexuality."

As the Heroes alum noted, "I really came of age on that show. I was 22 when it started. There were things that happened where I had to learn how to use my voice to advocate for myself, and I wish people would have had more of an awareness to support me."