Glee‘s Kurt and Blaine are back. Chris Colfer surprised Darren Criss onstage in London to sing their famous Christmas duet, nearly 16 years after it aired, and Darren spent the build-up insisting he’d be singing it alone.
On Sunday, October 18, Darren stood on the Royal Albert Hall stage and introduced Baby, It’s Cold Outside, the flirty duet Blaine sang with Kurt in 2010. He told the crowd he’d cover both parts himself.
A few verses in, Chris walked out.
“The only thing inappropriate about doing this song is doing it without me,” he said, and the hall screamed.
The timing is what has Gleeks talking. Eleven days earlier, Chris said he’d heard “absolutely nothing” about the Glee reboot that Ryan Murphy says he has already written. Back in 2019, he said no amount of money could get him to go back. On Sunday he was singing Kurt’s half of the most famous Klaine duet there is.
The fan video is further down. First, how Darren set it up.
Darren Said He’d Sing Both Parts
Darren Criss – Live at the Royal Albert Hall was billed as a look back at his whole career, with songs and stories from Glee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Maybe Happy Ending, the musical that won him a Tony in 2025. It was meant to be a single 7pm show, and a 2pm matinee was later added on the same day.
He brought friends. Fans posting from the show say the guests included Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo, so a famous face walking on wasn’t out of the question.
The setup for this song was a decoy, though. Darren, 39, told the audience the song wasn’t supposed to be sung this way, “but I’ve managed to pull off so many things,” Variety reported.
Then Chris, 36, walked on with his line about the song being inappropriate, which sounds a lot like a dig at the long-running argument over its lyrics. You can hear the crowd’s reaction on the fan footage.
He Said He’d Heard “Absolutely Nothing”
In September, Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Tonight that he, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan had written a script for a Glee revival. “I just finished the script an hour ago,” he said. He’d been in touch with around 10 original cast members, he added, though none of them had read it yet.
On October 7, Chris told Bustle he was completely out of the loop. “I know nothing and have heard absolutely nothing,” he said. “I wish I did.” He added that going back would be really hard without Naya Rivera, and joked that fans would come after him “with pitchforks and jazz hands” if he turned it down.
That “I wish I did” is a long way from where he was seven years ago. In 2019, he told USA Today a reboot was “not for me,” and borrowed a line from Dolly Parton to explain why: “No amount of money can make me go back and do it all over again.”
Nobody has linked the London duet to Murphy’s script, and no network or streamer has ordered the revival. Still, two Glee leads singing their characters’ signature song a few weeks after the script news was always going to get people talking.
Watch Kurt And Blaine Reunite
A fan filmed this from their seat in the hall. Keep watching for the moment Chris walks out.
Why This Song Still Means So Much
When A Very Glee Christmas aired on December 7, 2010, Kurt and Blaine weren’t even a couple yet. Blaine was the charming Dalton Academy Warbler Kurt had a crush on, and the duet was basically three minutes of flirting. Their first kiss didn’t come until the episode Original Song the following March.
Two boys trading a romantic duet on primetime network TV was a big deal in 2010. Chris joked to Entertainment Weekly at the time that it was by far the gayest thing ever on TV, and Murphy said he was proud of it for pushing the envelope.
Viewers ate it up. The track debuted at number 57 on the Billboard Hot 100, even though it was never released as a single. A year later, Chris tweeted: “I wonder how many people listen to @DarrenCriss and I sing ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ and don’t realize it’s two men.”
Chris, who is openly gay, won a Golden Globe in 2011 for playing Kurt. The couple fans nicknamed Klaine went on to break up, get back together, get engaged at Dalton and finally marry in the show’s last season, in a double wedding with Brittany and Santana. The series finale even had Rachel Berry carrying a baby for them.
Off screen, the two have stayed friends. When Darren won his Tony in June 2025, Chris posted a photo of the pair celebrating at a Tonys afterparty, which TVLine called one more sweet hit of Klaine. Getting back onstage together and singing the actual song was a different level.
Fans Still Can’t Believe It Happened
The Glee fandom woke up all at once. One fan on X predicted the duet would “single-handedly resurrect the glee fandom,” and the reaction since suggests they weren’t far off.
“I can’t imagine what it’d be like to see chris colfer to walk in out of nowhere,” another fan wrote. On Tumblr, one fan pictured Sue Sylvester somewhere “giggling and kicking her feet.” Another had passed on last-minute tickets in the name of “smart financial decisions” and was now regretting every penny saved.
The people who were actually there weren’t any calmer. “14 year old me is screaming right now,” one wrote. Another went further on Instagram: “not even my wedding day or the birth of my first child will even compare to this moment. i have peaked.”
Whether or not Kurt and Blaine ever make it back to McKinley, Chris says nobody has called him about the reboot yet. When Darren needed his duet partner, though, he turned up.