Laura Benanti criticizes Zachary Levi for suggesting COVID vaccines led to Gavin Creel's death

Laura Benanti did not mince words when it came to sharing her thoughts on her former Broadway co-star Zachary Levi using a beloved actor's death to spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines during a recent appearance on "That's a Gay Ass Podcast," hosted by Eric Williams.

Benanti and Levi starred in the 2016 Broadway revival of She Loves Me together with Gavin Creel, the beloved Broadway actor who passed away in September after being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma.

Shortly after his death, Creel was honored by members of the Broadway community and performers who knew him — from Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel to Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells — who shared memories on social media.

In October, Levi hosted an Instagram Live where he suggested that his former co-star died due to a "turbo cancer" because of COVID-19 vaccines. "A few weeks ago, my friend Gavin Creel died. He was 48 years old and one of the healthiest people I knew," he said during the Live, which is still on his page as a reel with the caption "Trump, Triage, Corruption, Covid and the potential end of the world." "You better believe that, with everything in me, I believe that if these COVID vaccinations were not forced on the American public, that the theaters weren't being pushed and leveraged…" he says before trailing off.

When asked about her thoughts on Levi, Benanti said she "never liked him."

"Everyone was like, ‘He’s so great!’ And I was like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s sucking up all the f***ing energy in this room. He wants to mansplain everybody’s part to them,'” she says during the interview. Benanti goes on to slam him for using Creel's death to promote vaccine misinformation. "For him to use Gavin’s memory — a person he was not friends with — to use his memory for his political agenda and to watch him try to make himself cry until he had one single tear, which he did not wipe away, I was like, f*** you forever.”