Naya Rivera, a singer, and actress who played a gay cheerleader on the hit TV musical “Glee”. Rivera was found dead Monday during a Southern California lake. She was 33.
Rivera’s body was discovered five days after she disappeared on Lake Piru, where her son, Josey, was found July 8 alone on a ship the 2 had rented, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said. The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the body was Rivera’s.
“Rest sweet, Naya. What a force you were,” wrote “Glee” co-star Jane Lynch on Twitter. Steven Canals, who co-created and produced the FX television program “Pose,” tweeted that he was “heartbroken over all the stories which will remain untold.”
I’ll never be able to articulate the importance of seeing Naya, a Black Puerto Rican, portraying a queer Afro-Latina on primetime TV. I’m heartbroken over all the stories that will remain untold. #RIPNayaRivera pic.twitter.com/UGq2rDwWay
— Steven Canals (@StevenCanals) July 13, 2020
Viola Davis sent her prayers to Rivera’s family and Kristin Chenoweth said: “Thank you for what you gave the planet .” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “as a Latina, it’s rare to possess upscale, complex characters reflect us in media.”
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Naya Rivera Glee
Rivera began working at a young age, but she rose to national attention playing a lesbian teen on “Glee,” which aired from 2009 until 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 such a lot more to try to and this is often such a terrible tragedy. We are forever grateful for the indelible contribution she made to ‘Glee,’ from the primary episode to the last,” said a press release from 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Entertainment.
A native of Santa Clarita, California, Rivera began working at 4, appearing in such series as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Family Matters” and “The Bernie Mac Show.” As a teenager, she struggled with a disorder and had breast implants put in at 18 (“a confidence thing, not a sexual thing,” she would later write in her autobiography).
“I had rock bottom self-worth in high school possible. I wasn’t popular, I didn’t have friends, but I might say it’s really important that you simply know who you’re and you’re getting to win within the end due to that,” Rivera said during a 2011 interview with The Associated Press.
Career and Job of Naya Rivera Glee star
She worked odd jobs as a telemarketer, a nanny, a waitress, and an Abercrombie & Fitch greeter before landing the role of Santana Lopez on Ryan Murphy’s “Glee.” She auditioned by singing “Emotion.” The pilot offered her no speaking lines.
Rivera played a secondary character — the mean cheerleader with blistering put-downs — within the show’s first season, but became a show regular within the second season as she struggled to reveal her character’s sexual identity. Many on social media credited her character for creating them feel better about their own sexuality.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d actually be playing a teenager lesbian,” she told the l. a. Times in 2011. “I didn’t think it had been getting to go this far. But I’m glad that it did because there are tons of fans who have expressed that they’ve been browsing similar situations in their lives. I’ve heard from girls that are in high school, they’re 16, 17, and they’re like, ‘I came bent my mom,’ or ‘I came bent my friends, and many thanks for helping me do this .’”
Songs of Naya Rivera
Some of her more memorable songs on the show include a canopy of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” with guest star Gwyneth Paltrow, “Here Comes the Sun” with Demi Lovato, and a tearful cover of The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young.”
Rivera’s “brilliance and humor were unmatched,” said “Glee” co-star Chris Colfer on Instagram. “She could turn a nasty day into an excellent day with one remark. She inspired and uplifted people without even trying.” Jenna Ushkowitz, another “Glee” co-star, promised, “to help the legacy of your talent, humor, light, and loyalty survive .”
Naya Rivera movies and tv shows
Rivera struggled to urge career traction amid the rising young talent on the show that included Colfer, Cory Monteith, Lea Michele, Darren Criss, Amber Riley, Melissa Benoist, and Dianna Agron. She was not a series regular during the sixth and final season of “Glee.”
“It would be an irony to mention that ‘Glee’ changed my life. Glee show overhauled it. After acting on Glee It got me out of debt. It helped to cement my career. And before the show, I’d never had a gaggle of individuals I used to be that close with,” she wrote in her memoir, 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 ragtag group of misfits, and 6 seasons later, once we filmed the last episode, we were still an equivalent bunch of misfits. just wearing costlier jeans.”
After the show, Rivera sought success in film and music. Naya Rivera made her feature debut in 2014’s “At the Devil’s Door. She plays a lady caught within the middle of supernatural events. The show released the only “Sorry” in 2013 featuring rapper Big Sean, a one-time fiance.
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Naya Rivera Son
She and actor Ryan Dorsey were married in 2014. Ryan and Naya Rivera son, Josey, was born in 2015. She called her young son “my greatest success, and that I will never do any better than him.”
Rivera was arrested and charged in West Virginia in 2017 with misdemeanor domestic battery after she allegedly hit Dorsey. The charge was dismissed because Dorsey didn’t wish to press charges. They divorced soon after.
Most recently, Rivera had a task on Lifetime’s “Devious Maids,” which released her memoir in 2016. She played school administrator Collette Jones within the YouTube Red online series “Step Up: High Water” starring Ne-Yo. The show is a few cutthroat humanistic discipline school in Atlanta.
Naya Rivera’s death
Death is the latest death during a tragic arc of Naya Rivera “Glee” star. Monteith died in 2013 exactly seven years to the day before Rivera’s body was publicly identified. From a toxic mixture of alcohol and heroin, and Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Mark Salling. Mark who played a jock on the series, killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to kiddie porn charges. Rivera and Salling dated for 3 years and broke up in 2010.
In the preface to her autobiography, Rivera wrote that motherhood had changed her life and given it perspective. She said she was braver, too.
“Your life doesn’t need to be perfect for you to be proud of. In fact, I feel it’s the opposite: the more imperfect your life has been. The prouder you ought to be because it means you’ve come that much further. And also probably had tons more fun along the way.”
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