Laura Benanti to Zachary Levi: ‘F— you forever’ for COVID vaccine comments on Broadway star’s death

All of Broadway mourned when Tony-winning actor Gavin Creel died.

His many co-stars, including Bette Midler and New Jersey’s Laura Benanti, shared remembrances on social media.

But one of them, actor Zachary Levi, used the loss of the actor to advance a bogus claim.

Levi implied that a COVID-19 vaccine caused Creel’s death.

Creel, 48, died in September after being diagnosed in July with cancer — metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma.

“I know that this is going to offend some people and make some people mad, and I wish it didn’t,” Levi said in an October Instagram Live video, per Deadline. “So, a few weeks ago, my friend Gavin Creel died. He was 48 years old, and he was one of the healthiest people I knew.”

READ MORE: A ‘shattered’ Broadway mourns Tony winner Gavin Creel. ‘Into the Woods,’ ‘Waitress’ star was 48.

“You better believe that, with everything in me, I believe that if these COVID vaccinations were not forced on the American public,” said Levi, 44, “that the theaters weren’t being pushed and leveraged …”

Benanti, who starred with both Creel and Levi in the 2016 Broadway musical “She Loves Me,” slammed Levi for his comments in a recent interview with Eric Williams on “That’s a Gay Ass Podcast” (see below).

“To use his (Creel’s) 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,’” she said.

Levi, who rose to fame leading the NBC series “Chuck,” went on to star in DC’s “Shazam!” movies. He endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 2024 presidential election, then Donald Trump.

Benanti, a Tony winner who grew up in Kinnelon and lives in Essex County — her recent TV and film credits include “Elsbeth,” “Goodrich,” “No Hard Feelings” and “The Gilded Age” — was nominated alongside Levi for “She Loves Me.”

READ MORE: N.J.’s Laura Benanti on ‘No Hard Feelings,’ ‘The Gilded Age’ and the Melania impression that made her leave N.Y.

“I never liked him,” said Benanti, 45, who is also known for her uncanny Melania Trump impressions on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“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.’”

“He really sucked everybody in with his, like, dance party energy,” she said. “Like, ‘we’re doing a dance party at half-hour.’ I was like ‘good luck, have fun.’”

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.