Brittany S. Pierce

Brittany S. Pierce is a student at William McKinley High School in the television series *Glee*. Played by Heather Morris, she first appears as a member of the Cheerios, the cheerleading squad coached by Sue Sylvester. Brittany joins New Directions, the school’s glee club, alongside fellow Cheerios Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray. Her dancing becomes a distinctive part of the group’s performances. In the episode “Britney/Brittany,” she performs “I’m a Slave 4 U” and shares a rendition of “Me Against the Music” with Santana. The episode makes a joke of the similarity between Brittany’s name and Britney Spears’s.

Brittany’s remarks often sound absurd, but the series gives her interests a life of their own. She hosts *Fondue for Two*, an interview show in which guests eat fondue while she asks questions. She frequently mentions her cat, Lord Tubbington, and attributes human habits to him. When Irish exchange student Rory Flanagan arrives at McKinley, Brittany believes he is a leprechaun. These stories sit alongside her friendships and romances. She dates fellow glee-club member Artie Abrams, then becomes involved with Santana, whose struggle to acknowledge her sexuality is a major part of their story.

During her senior year, Brittany runs for class president against Kurt Hummel and wins. She does not graduate with her original classmates: her poor academic record requires her to repeat senior year. In the following season, she dates Sam Evans. Her academic story then takes an unexpected turn when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recognizes her unusual mathematical ability. Brittany leaves McKinley for MIT at the end of the fourth season, although the move does not end her connection to New Directions or to Santana.

Brittany returns for the show’s later seasons. In the fifth season, she explains that she is unhappy at MIT and wants to be with Santana. Their relationship becomes one of the series’ lasting commitments rather than a passing school romance. In the final season, they marry in the episode “A Wedding,” sharing the ceremony with Kurt and Blaine Anderson. The joint wedding brings together two couples whose relationships developed through years of performances, arguments and reconciliations at McKinley.

Brittany’s path is unusual even within *Glee*: a cheerleader who becomes a class president, a glee-club performer and an MIT student. Yet her most consistent ties are to the people she met at school. Her friendship with Santana grows into a marriage, while her place in New Directions gives her dancing a stage. Those specific turns, from *Fondue for Two* to the double wedding, define her story across the series.