Celebrity Paradox / Glee

• Gloria Estefan plays Santana's mom even though her songs have been covered on the show.
• Frozen's "Let It Go" was covered on the show, despite being a hit for both Idina Menzel and Demi Lovato, who both star, with Jonathan Groff also being in that film.
• In "Grilled Cheesus," Burt mentions that Kurt has a copy of Grey's Anatomy season 6. April Kepner appears in that season, who is played by Sarah Drew, who plays Suzy Pepper. In season 14, Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester) will have also joined the Grey's Anatomy cast. Stefania Spampinato is also in both shoes, again with a bigger role in Grey’s Anatomy. Harry Shum Jr. (Mike Chang) will also appear in season 19.
• Will had a storyline when he considered trying to make it on Broadway. His actor originated Link Larkin in Hairspray, which must exist in universe, because the kids sang "You Can't Stop the Beat."
• In episode 3.03, Kurt laments the fact that he is not the "leading male" type, with a comment that no-one is looking to cast him opposite Kate Hudson. 20 episodes later, Kate Hudson shows up as Rachel's new dance teacher, Cassandra July.
• Rachel and Brody covered "Give Your Heart A Break", Demi Lovato's biggest hit; Demi Lovato plays Dani on the show.
  • One review jokingly speculated that Dani actually "is Demi Lovato in one of those Princess Jasmine scenarios where she’s trying to find someone who loves her for her." Other Demi Lovato songs would later be covered.
• At one point Will sings the song "Still Got Tonight"... a song by Matthew Morrison, the guy who plays him.
• Brittany starts to sing Naya Rivera's song "Sorry Not Sorry" in season 4.
• Blaine and Rachel perform some of Darren Criss's songs (including his version of Teenage Dream) in the show.
• Within the first couple of episodes, there's a scene where Finn shows Quinn his name for their baby (Drizzle) and says he got inspiration from Gwyneth Paltrow's baby name, Apple. Fast forward one whole season, and a teacher named Holly Holliday shows up, played by Paltrow.
• Blaine sings "Last Friday Night (TGIF)". The actors playing Blaine and Artie were both in the music video for that song.
• In the episode where the Glee kids put on a production of Rocky Horror, Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick cameo as TV execs, though they were in the film's cast.
• Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff presumably still starred in Spring Awakening though they play Rachel and Jesse.
• John Stamos:
  • Early on in the series, Emma says that there are people out there who get famous without any talent — like John Stamos. Her new boyfriend Carl is played by him, and she thinks he's very talented.
  • Santana's mom reveals that Santana used to dress up like Uncle Jesse on Full House - Jesse was played by John Stamos.
• Whoopi Goldberg appearing as Carmen Tibideaux but the show she presents, The View, makes an appearance in season 6. Also to be ignored is Naya Rivera's (Santana) occasional co-host gig of The View.
• A song by The Wanted is performed in season 3; in season 6 their singer Max George will become the main villain from Vocal Adrenaline.
• Two of the Warblers (one being Grant Gustin, who plays Sebastian) were in West Side Story. The pair were introduced to the show late because of the National tour ending just before filming started.
• Just who starred in Wicked in the Glee universe? Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, obviously, despite playing Shelby and April.
• In a Sue's Corner web episode, Sue does a piece on 'sneaky gays', in which she laments gays no longer being obvious. Among the sneaky gays are Neil Patrick Harris, who later plays Bryan Ryan, and Adam Lambert, who later plays Elliott Gilbert, AKA Starchild.
• At one point Blaine wears one of Adam Lambert's Queen tour jackets, too.

• Glee existing within itself:
  • The deaf club choir director defends the stealing of "Don't Stop Believin'" by saying that it's the number one downloaded song on iTunes. Which is correct (or was at the time), if you include the Glee cast version with the Journey version. And the original experienced a major resurgence in popularity after it was Glee, and so the song probably wouldn't be very downloaded - or popular among high-schoolers - if it weren't for the show, which apparently has to exist inside itself. Ouch.
  • Pretty much all of the main cast seems to exist in the Glee universe, if Blaine and Sam apparently watching "Frenemies" during "Tested" is anything to go by. Yeah, have fun figuring that one out.
  • You get to see Paramount lot 14 and the sign that says Glee films there when Puck and Jake visit Hollywood in season 4.
  • Kurt mentions GLAAD, but who hosted the GLAAD awards when Naya Rivera and Dianna Agron would have, because they were representing the show?
• Kurt tells Sebastian that he has, "obnoxious CW hair." Two years later, Grant Gustin joined the CW show Arrow, before leading the CW spin-off of it, The Flash.
• Smash is briefly mentioned multiple times in the series. Both Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff are mentioned to exist in Smash.

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