Lea Michele Touches on Long-Rumored Behind-the-Scenes Glee Drama and the Moment that ‘Fractured’ the Cast

Lea Michele is reminiscing about her time on Glee.

While speaking on the Thursday, May 8, episode of the Therapuss with Jake Shane podcast, Michele, 38, admitted a lot was going on behind the scenes while she played Rachel Berry on the hit Fox show, which ran from 2009 until 2015.

When asked if there was anything happening backstage that she wished the people watching knew about, she said, “Literally everything … we were all so young and everybody was growing up and falling in love and for me that was a huge part of the whole experience for me … was my, this great love.”

Michele dated Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on the show, off-screen from 2012 until he died unexpectedly from a heroin and alcohol overdose on July 13, 2013, at the age of 31.

Michele continued of her time playing Rachel, “It was so unbelievable that you would be watching the show and when I watch it I can tell you exactly … I’d be like ‘Oh, that day I was sobbing in my dressing room.’ Or, ‘That day was the best day in the world’ … But the only people that know all of that were the people who were in that room.”

Michele has remained close to some cast members, including Dianna Agron and Darren Criss. The trio recently had a reunion at Maybe Happy Ending, the hit Broadway musical Criss is leading opposite Helen J Shen. She’s also BFFs with Jonathan Groff, whom she told Shane was like her “second husband.”

“To me it’s like there is such a comfort because we all really did go through something that only we will ever understand,” she added, “so it’s just, I feel so safe with them and so comfortable — family forever.”

The actress insisted that she loved Glee “so much,” teasing that maybe one day she’ll “write a book” about some of her “wild” experiences during filming. “The show means so much to me, the work that I did, and I love Rachel so much,” Michele said.

However, grieving the loss of Monteith in 2013 so publicly “was so sad, it was so depressing,” she said. “It was so unbelievable but I just had to keep going, I wasn’t allowed to stop.” When Shane asked if it helped the Glee cast “band together,” she replied, “No, I think it really fractured so much. I mean again, I can’t speak for everyone, I think in some ways it did for certain people, but I think that … for me it was so hard to I just completely broke.” She went on to thank the cast and particularly the crew for “holding me up so much.” But, she added, “a lot of [the original cast] were gone by then which was hard.”

For now, though, she’s enjoying being able to perform some of the Glee tracks on her intimate North American tour, which begins this month before wrapping on June 28 in Niagara Falls, Canada. She’d been due to kick off the shows in Durham, N.C., on Monday, May 5, but the performance was postponed.

Michele will be performing in Orlando on Thursday, May 8, before heading to locations including Palm Desert, Calif., Washington, D.C., and Englewood, N.J.

PEOPLE exclusively confirmed the tour news back in March. “On this tour, fans can look forward to an evening that is both intimate and nostalgic, filled with some of my personal favorite songs that I’ve had the privilege of performing throughout my career,” Michele said.