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Actress and singer Patti LuPone recently sat down for a profile by The New Yorker titled “Patti LuPone Is Done with Broadway – and Almost Everything Else,” published on May 26, 2025.
During the interview, the Broadway legend told interviewer Michael Schulman that she was no longer friends with her former colleague, actress, and singer, Audra McDonald.
“She’s not a friend,” LuPone stated.
When Schulman further asked Patti about her opinions on Audra’s latest production, Gypsy, the 76-year-old New Yorker stared back at him and later said looking out the window, “What a beautiful day.”
Meanwhile, the interviewer described that the silence lasted for 15 seconds.
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Notably, Audra McDonald is nominated for the role of Rose Thompson Hovick in Gypsy at this year’s Tony Awards. Patti LuPone is a previous recipient of the award for the same role in 2008.
Exploring more about Patti LuPone’s fallout with Audra McDonald
During the recent interview with The New Yorker, Patti LuPone shared that she and fellow stage icon Audra McDonald had a falling out years back. However, she did not provide any more details.
Notably, in the fall of 2024, Patti LuPone was the star of the Broadway production titled The Roommate, also starring Mia Furrow. The play was happening next door with the musical Hell’s Kitchen by Alicia Keys and starring Kecia Lewis.
Reportedly, LuPone filed a noise complaint with Shubert Organization head Robert Wankel and later sent flowers to the cast and crew of The Hell’s Kitchen, after the issue was resolved.
However, Kecia Lewis criticized Patti for her behavior in a subsequent "open letter" via an Instagram post, tagging it as “offensive, “rude,” “racially micro-aggressive,” and “bullying.”
Lewis added that the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star was “rooted in privilege” for calling a “Black show loud.”
Recently, interviewer Michael Schulman brought this to Patti LuPone’s attention, adding that Audra McDonald liked the Kecia Lewis video and commented with emojis seemingly supporting the Bronx native. The mother of one shared her response with The New Yorker:
“Exactly. And I thought, ‘You should know better.’ That’s typical of Audra.”
Patti LuPone also hit back at Kecia Lewis for labelling herself a Broadway “veteran.”
“Let’s find out how many Broadway shows Kecia Lewis has done, because she doesn’t know what the f**k she’s talking about. She’s done seven. I’ve done 31. Don’t call yourself a vet, b*tch!” Patti commented.
Notably, Kecia Lewis has done 10 Broadway productions, while LuPone has done 28, OUT reported. Meanwhile, according to Page Six, McDonald’s has six Tony wins and the most number of nominations in Broadway history, while LuPone has won three awards.
While Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis have not responded to LuPone yet, the latter’s The Hell’s Kitchen co-stars Jessica Vosk and Shoshana Bean criticized Patti and extended their support for Lewis and McDonald via a series of Instagram Stories.
Previously, Patti faced controversy for her feud with another Broadway icon, Lillias White, in 2022.
For those uninitiated, McDonald and LuPone have worked together on several occasions, including in the 2000 New York Philharmonic’s concert rendition of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and the 2007 production by LA Opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, among others.
