Patti Lupone’s Shadiest Comments About Madonna, Kim Kardashian and More

Patti Lupone delivers shady takedowns of Hollywood celebrities about as effortlessly as she shifts octaves on the Broadway stage.

The ultimate Broadway diva has smacked down the likes of Madonna and Kim Kardashian on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen with her snappy wit over the years. Even when she’s not encouraged to be shady by host Andy Cohen, Lupone always has a sly remark on the tip of her tongue. Even her collaborators aren’t safe, as Lupone has delivered countless insults at the expense of Broadway legend Andrew Lloyd Webber over the years. Her wrath goes beyond celebrities too — you might be her next target if you dare to whip out a mobile device during one of her Broadway performances.

Keep scrolling for a look back at some of Lupone’s shadiest moments below:

Madonna

Decades of bad blood exist between Lupone and Madonna over the film version of Lloyd Webber’s Evita. Lupone originated the role of Argentina’s one-time First Lady Eva Perón in the Broadway musical, but by the time it was made into a movie in 1996, Madonna was selected for the lead role.

Madonna’s movie career has been notoriously rocky, yet her portrayal of Perón was both a critical and commercial success — though Lupone wasn’t impressed. Lupone got her revenge on a 2017 WWHL episode when a caller asked if she’d ever spoken to Madonna about Evita.

“I was on the treadmill when MTV used to have videos and I saw, I believe it was “Buenos Aires,” and I thought it was a piece of s**t,” she bluntly declared. “Madonna is a ‘movie-killer!’ She’s dead behind the eyes, she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be on film or on stage.”

Lupone soon caveated, “She’s a wonderful performer for what she does, but she is not an actress!”

The stage icon had a chance to walk back her criticism of Madonna during a 2024 appearance on Hot Ones alongside Aubrey Plaza but, in typical Lupone fashion, she chose to “eat a death wing” rather than apologize to the “Material Girl” singer.

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Lupone has spent the better part of 30 years beefing with Broadway impresario Lloyd Webber, after he cast her as Eva Peron in Evita in 1979. The dispute arose when Lloyd Webber subsequently fired Lupone for the leading role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard before the show moved from the West End to Broadway, leading to a lengthy legal battle.

Lupone said in an interview years later that she would never work with Lloyd Webber again, partially because she felt he wrote “crap music.”

“Evita was his best score. In its bizarreness, when I first heard it, I swear to god I thought he hated women,” she quipped. “There are some very romantic moments in his music, and then there is some real trash that he doesn’t even think about parting with. He’s not a very good editor of his own stuff.”

When Lloyd Webber closed Phantom of the Opera on Broadway in 2023, Lupone told a WWHL viewer that, “Phantom is over.”

“It’s been how many years, 90? Who hasn’t seen Phantom and why see it again?” she asked.

The duo finally made peace when Lupone performed as part of a tribute to Lloyd Webber at the 2018 Grammy Awards, but by 2024, they were back to butting heads.

“Andrew Lloyd Webber is a narcissistic, insecure man,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time.

Kim Kardashian

Lupone let rip on Kardashian when it was revealed that the reality star landed her biggest acting role to date in American Horror Story. Her comments were all the more awkward because Lupone has frequently worked with AHS cocreator Ryan Murphy — including appearing in two seasons of American Horror Story.

Nonetheless, Lupone took issue when Cohen brought up Kardashian’s casting in American Horror Story: Delicate as part of a 2024 WWHL episode.

“[She’s taking] a role away from actors,” Lupone complained. “Excuse me, Kim, what are you doing with your life? Don’t get on the stage!”

Ouch!

Donald Trump

Lupone has been an outspoken critic of the president during both of his terms, thus she held nothing back when asked by Variety in 2017 if she’d consider performing for Trump.

“Well I hope he doesn’t [come see me], because I won’t perform if he does,” she insisted.

Asked to explain her stance, Lupone shot back, “Because I hate the motherf***er. How’s that?”

Don’t bank on Lupone making any White House visits over the next four years…

Barbra Streisand

Lupone shaded Streisand a few times on WWHL over the years, including telling Cohen she wasn’t interested in her contemporary’s 2023 memoir My Name Is Barbra. During a 2022 interview with Cohen, she criticized Streisand’s casting in the 1969 movie version of the iconic musical Hello, Dolly!.

“Barbra Streisand was too young, and [original Broadway star] Carol Channing should have played it [in the movie],” she argued.

Asked if she’d ever consider playing Dolly, Lupone admitted, “People have told me I should do Dolly, and I didn’t quite understand it.”

During another WWHL guest stint, Lupone laughed off a viewer question about Streisand potentially following in her footsteps by playing Mama Rose in a Gypsy movie musical.

“I know she’d like to do it and I’m sure there are technologies so she could do it, and I think, 50 years ago, she’d have been a brilliant Madame Rose,” Lupone said. “I think she’s too old. Again, there’s technology to change all of that but I don’t know, whether mentally, she has the capability [and] hunger.”

Joanna Gleason

Lupone was several spicy chicken wings deep into her 2024 Hot Ones episode with Plaza when she admitted she was still salty over the 1988 Tony Awards. Lupone was considered a favorite to take home the Best Actress in a Musical Award that year for her performance as Reno Sweeney in the revival of Anything Goes, only for Gleason to win instead for playing The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods.

On Hot Ones, Plaza mentioned that Lupone is a three-time Tony Award winner, before reminding her that she also lost the Tony on five other occasions.

“Which of the actresses that beat you deserved their win the least?” Plaza asked, with Lupone admitting, “It would be Joanna Gleason in Into the Woods.”

Lupone then jokingly clarified, “I should have won for Anything F***ing Goes! I love you Joanna, but you robbed me!”

Gleason was one of very few Lupone targets to respond to the diva, telling The Broadway Show that there were no hard feelings over the slight.

“I love her so much, she can say anything she wants,” Joanna said. “She went on to win, like, two more [Tonys], right? She did OK. She was very sweet. She also sent me flowers when I won, so she’s a champ. She’s also an inspiration to me.”

Broadway Audiences

Lupone saves her angriest takedowns for the Broadway audience members who don’t respect the live theater environment. In 2009, Lupone stopped in the middle of a Gypsy performance to call out an attendee who was interfering in her performance.

“Stop taking pictures right now,” she ordered, before demanding: “Get ‘em out! I won’t continue if they’re taking pictures!”

Needless to say, the photographers were promptly shown the door. A 2016 incident involved Lupone literally snatching a phone away from an oblivious Show for Days spectator.

“I feel bad for the people who come here to have a theatrical experience and it’s ruined,” she explained to ABC News at the time.

With the 2016 instance, Lupone was a bit more generous to the offender as the woman’s phone was returned after the conclusion of the performance.

In 2022, Lupone scolded someone in the audience for not wearing their medical mask properly while attending a post-pandemic Q&A with the cast of Company.

“Put your mask over your nose,” she demanded. “That’s why you’re in the theater. That’s the rule! If you don’t want to follow the rule, get the f*** out!”

Someone else in the audience that night made the grave mistake of trying to argue with Lupone, insisting they “paid [her] salary.”

“You pay my salary? B****, [the producer] pays my salary,” Lupone fired back. “Who do you think you are?”