NEW YORK (AP) – Naya Rivera, a singer and actor who played a gay entertainer in the hit musical comedy “Glee,” was found dead Monday in a lake in southern California. She was 33 years old.
Rivera’s body was discovered for six days. after he disappeared into Piru Lake, where his son, Josey, was found on July 8 alone in a boat the two had rented, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said. The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the body was Rivera’s.
Rest easy, Naya. What a force you were, “” Glee “co-star Jane Lynch wrote on Twitter. Steven Canals, who co-created and produced the FX television show” Pose, “tweeted that he was” heartbroken by all the stories that won’t be told. ”
Viola Davis sent her prayers to Rivera’s family and Kristin Chenoweth said, “Thank you for what you gave the world.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “as a Latina, it is rare to have rich and complex characters that reflect us in the media.”
Rivera began acting at a young age, but gained national attention playing a lesbian teenager in “Glee,” which aired from 2009 to 2015 on Fox. She is survived by her parents, Yolanda and George; a younger brother, Mychal; a sister, Nickayla; and her 4-year-old son.
“Naya Rivera was a fierce talent with much more to do and this is such a terrible tragedy. We are always grateful for the indelible contribution he made to ‘Glee’, from the first episode to the last, “said a statement from 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Entertainment.
Originally from Santa Clarita, California, Rivera began acting at age 4, appearing in series such as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, “Family Matters” and “The Bernie Mac Show”. As a teenager, he struggled with an eating disorder and had breast implants placed at age 18 (“a matter of trust, not sexual,” he would later write in his autobiography).
“I had the lowest possible self-esteem in high school. He was not popular, he had no friends, but I would say that it is very important that you know who you are and that you will win in the end for that, ”Rivera said in a 2011 interview. with The Associated Press.
She worked odd jobs as a telemarketer, babysitter, waitress, and hostess for Abercrombie & Fitch before landing the role of Santana Lopez in Ryan Murphy’s “Glee”. She auditioned singing “Emotion” from Destiny’s Child. The pilot did not offer him lines to speak.
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.
“Honestly, I never thought I would actually be playing a lesbian teenager,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “I didn’t think she was going to get that far.” But I’m glad it was, because there have been many fans who have expressed that they have gone through similar situations in their lives. I have heard of girls who are in high school, they are 16, 17 years old and they say: ‘I went out with my mother’ or ‘I went out with my friends, and thanks for helping me do it. that.'”
Some of her most memorable songs on the show include a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” featuring guest star Gwyneth Paltrow, “Here Comes the Sun” with Demi Lovato and a tearful cover of “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry. .
“Rivera’s brilliance and humor were second to none,” “Glee” co-star Chris Colfer said on Instagram. “She could turn a bad day into a great day with just one comment. She inspired and uplifted people without even trying. ” Jenna Ushkowitz, another “Glee” co-star, promised to “help live the legacy of her talent, humor, light and loyalty.”
Rivera struggled to pursue a professional career amid growing young talent on the show that included Colfer, Cory Monteith, Lea Michele, Darren Criss, Amber Riley, Melissa Benoist, and Dianna Agron. She was no longer a regular series during the sixth and final season of “Glee”.
“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 had never had a group of people that I was so close to, “she wrote in her memoirs, titled” Sorry, not sorry: dreams, mistakes and growing up. ”
“But while ‘Glee’ changed our lives, it didn’t necessarily change who we were. We started the show as a group of misfits, and six seasons later, when we filmed the last episode, we were still the same group of misfits. Right now wearing more expensive jeans.
After the show, Rivera sought success in film and music. She made her film debut in 2014 in “At the Devil’s Door,” playing a woman caught in the middle of supernatural events, and released the single “Sorry” in 2013 with rapper Big Sean, a one-time fiancé.
She and actor Ryan Dorsey were married in 2014, and their son, Josey, was born in 2015. He called his young son “my greatest success, and I will never do better than him.”
Rivera was arrested and charged in West Virginia in 2017 with misdemeanor domestic assault after she allegedly beat Dorsey. The charge was dismissed because Dorsey did not wish to file charges. They divorced soon after.
Most recently, Rivera had a role in Lifetime’s “Devious Maids,” published her memoirs in 2016, and played school administrator Collette Jones in the online YouTube Red series “Step Up: High Water” starring Ne-Yo. . The show is about a ruthless performing arts school in Atlanta.
Rivera’s death is the latest death in a tragic “Glee” actor arc. Monteith died in 2013, exactly seven years before the day Rivera’s body was publicly identified, from a toxic mixture of alcohol and heroin, and Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Mark Salling, who played an athlete in the series, committed suicide in 2018 after pleading guilty. to child pornography charges. Rivera and Salling dated for three years and separated in 2010.
In the preface to her autobiography, Rivera wrote that motherhood had changed her life and given her perspective. She said she was also braver.
“Your life does not have to be perfect for you to be proud. In fact, I think it is just the opposite: the more imperfect your life has been, the more proud you should be, because it means that you have gone much further, and probably have had much more fun along the way. ”
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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