Actress Lea Michele appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last week to promote her new celebrity-packed movie “New Year’s Eve.”
Michele explained to Leno the roots of her actual last name, Sarfati, a “Sephardic, Spanish-Jewish name.” Apparently, growing up as Lea Sarfati wasn’t easy for her.
“I got Lea So-fatty, Lea So-farty at school, so when I was little and I went on my first audition, they were like, ‘And may we have your name,’ and I said, ‘Lea Michele.’ And I’ve been Lea Michele ever since.”
Michele also said that growing up Italian meant a whole lot of pasta, even on Thanksgiving, something that Leno, who is also half Italia,n sympathized with.
Michele talked about her connection with Barbara Streisand. Apparently, she watched an episode of the show “Hoarders,” featuring a crazy doll collector who possessed a Barbara doll. Michele tweeted asking how she can get a hold of that doll, being a big Streisand fan. The response she got was from none other than Babs herself, who sent her a Barbara doll (she keeps her own dolls? that’s a little weird).
Well Lea, Babs didn’t change her last name, why did you?
