However, 12 years later, Kevin revealed that he’d actually completely manufactured the drama. 

On his And That’s What You Really Missed podcast, he said, “We had enjoyed two very solid years of success and really great ratings, and it was the first time they had started to go down in a significant way. Because I was the one who was always checking, I was reporting back and we all knew…I don’t know who came up with it, it might’ve been a group thing,” McHale said. “So I talked to Lea. I don’t know if I talked to Cory, I think we did. And you [Jenna] were part of it…I was like, ‘I’m sitting across the room. What if I pretend to take a picture of Jenna and in the background, the very edge of frame, are Cory and Lea being a little extra snuggly?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll put it up and wait a little bit for people to notice, and then I’ll delete it, like I did something wrong.’ Because the intention was we were gonna get rumors started that Cory and Lea are dating, and people will watch the show. We were all very nervous. Lea was like, ‘Yes, absolutely, let’s do it.'”

His castmates asked for continuous updates, and once a single person noticed Cory and Lea in the background, he deleted the post — but the “Monchele riot” had already taken off.

However, the most surprising part was, at the time, Lea and Cory were actually together, unbeknownst to their costars. Kevin continued, “We were at the [SAG Awards] afterparty and Lea sits me down and is like, ‘Did you know? We had actually started dating then.’ Nobody knew! Of course, everybody found shortly thereafter. But she’s like, ‘We started, like, dating that week again.'”