“Glee” actress Naya Rivera died after an accident at Piru Lake near Los Angeles, California. She was 33 years old.
The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Tuesday that Rivera’s cause of death was drowning, after completing an autopsy report. The form of death appears as an accident.
The date of the pronouncement appears as Monday, July 13.
According to a coroner news release and obtained by Fox News, “On the morning of July 13, the Ventura County Coroner’s Office was notified that the body of a woman believed to be Naya Marie Rivera, The 33-year-old was recovered from the waters of Piru Lake in Ventura County, California.
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“The circumstances and the visual characteristics indicated that the body was that of Naya Rivera and that the identity has been confirmed by dental comparison,” the statement continues. “An X-ray of the body was performed and a complete autopsy was performed. The autopsy findings are consistent with drowning and the condition of the body is consistent with the time it was submerged. No traumatic injury or disease processes were identified at autopsy. ” “
According to the statement, “There is no evidence from the investigation or examination that drugs or alcohol have played a role” in Rivera’s death, “but the samples will be sent for toxicology testing.”
Rivera was the subject of a massive search effort led by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office that lasted five days after he rented a pontoon with his 4-year-old son, Josey, and went missing. Police confirmed Monday that a body had been found in the northeast corner of Piru Lake. Hours later, at a press conference, authorities said they were “sure” that he was the former “Glee” star.
Glee actress Naya Rivera went missing on a lake in California on Wednesday.
(Valerie Macon / Getty Images)
Rivera and her son went swimming during their excursion (he was wearing a life jacket but she was not) and returned to the boat, but she did not, the sheriff’s department said.
The boy was found safe on the boat three hours later by another navigator, according to KCAL-TV in Los Angeles. According to Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub, Josey told investigators that his mother helped him get back on board the ship. Then he looked back and saw her disappear into the water.
According to Ayub, the water “is between 35 and 60 feet deep” in the area where the body was found, “and there are thickets and trees in the lake bed there.”
The sheriff said Rivera’s family “has expressed its gratitude to everyone involved in the search efforts.”
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Low visibility influenced how long it took the authorities to find his body. Capt. Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department told Fox News that the crew suspended their search efforts at 10 p.m. Wednesday, the first night of the search, due to dark conditions.
In this Jan. 13, 2018, file photo, Naya Rivera participates on the ‘Step Up: High Water’ panel during the YouTube Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena, California.
(AP)
“Our divers couldn’t see anything and it was becoming dangerous for them,” he added. The search ended at dusk in the following days until his body was discovered on Monday.
Originally from Santa Clarita, California, Rivera began acting at age 4, appearing on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Family Matters” and “The Bernie Mac Show.”
She auditioned for her role as Santana López singing “Emotion” from Destiny’s Child. The pilot did not offer him lines to speak.
The actress is perhaps best known for playing Santana López in “Glee” between 2009 and 2015. Santana was an entertainer in the musical comedy and appeared in 113 episodes of the series. Santana was one of the many LGBTQ characters on the show.
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“Naya Rivera was a fierce talent with much more to do and this is such a terrible tragedy. We are eternally grateful for the indelible contribution he made to ‘Glee’, from the first episode to the last, “20th Century Fox TV and Fox Entertainment said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
Rivera played a supporting character, the evil cheerleader with dazzling humiliations, in the show’s first season, but became a regular show in the second season as she struggled to reveal her character’s sexual identity. Many on social media attribute her character for making them feel better about their own sexuality.
“It would be an understatement to say that ‘Glee’ changed my life. I review it. It got me out of debt. It helped me cement my career. And before the show, I’ve never had a group of people that I was that close to, “she wrote in her 2016 memoir,” Sorry, Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up. “
Rivera’s 4-year-old son is from a marriage to actor Ryan Dorsey. The couple finalized their divorce in June 2018 after nearly four years of marriage. She wrote in her memoirs that her son was “my greatest success, and I will never do better than him.”
In the memoirs, she also spoke about the difficulties of appearing in show business as a mixed-race actress.
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Naya Rivera was one of the original cast members on the Fox series ‘Glee’.
(FOX)
“At the auditions, my mother filled out the forms with all my basic information, and when it came to the race question, she would always check the ‘other’ box and then write down exactly what it was: a quarter African-Americans, a quarter Germans and half Puerto Rican, ”Rivera wrote at the time. “Mom also made sure to instill my racial identity in me. “People are always going to ask my children what they are,” he said. “And it is important for them to know.”
He previously dated his co-star Mark Salling, who committed suicide in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. The actress got engaged to rapper Big Sean in 2013, but their relationship ended a year later. The couple met on Twitter and collaborated musically, and the rapper appeared on Rivera’s debut single “Sorry.”
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
