‘It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments’
Naya Rivera’s ex-husband Ryan Dorsey has revealed the horrifying moment their then-4-year-old son witnessed the Glee star’s death on July 8, 2020.
Rivera disappeared while boating on Lake Piru outside Los Angeles nearly five years ago. Her son, Josey, was found sleeping on the boat but his mother was nowhere to be found. Five days later, her body was discovered, with her death ruled an accidental drowning.
The 33-year-old actress vanished after renting a pontoon boat with her son. While he was later found alone on the watercraft, Rivera never made it out of the water and back on the vessel.
Rivera and her son were swimming on Lake Piru when she noticed the boat she had rented had started to drift away. As she and Josey swam back to the craft, he was able to grab ahold of “the tanks” and pull himself “around the boat.” A police report said she likely drowned after exhausting herself getting Josey to safety.
“He said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore,” Dorsey recalled. “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”
Dorsey, who appeared on Justified and Ray Donovan, learned that Rivera had vanished when he got a call from her mother’s husband while he was shopping for groceries.
“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” Dorsey recalled when he heard the news. “I feared the worst.”
Rivera’s estate and Dorsey settled a wrongful death suit against the County of Ventura, Ventura County Parks and Recreation Management and United Water Conservation District in 2022.
She also wasn’t warned “about the dangerous conditions on the lake” the day she rented the boat.
A native of Santa Clarita, California, Rivera was a child actor who found stardom playing a lesbian teen Santana Lopez on Glee, which aired from 2009 until 2015.
Rivera’s death followed other dark tragedies that hit the show, which was co-created by Ryan Murphy.
In the preface to her 2016 autobiography, Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up, Rivera wrote that becoming a mother changed the way that she looked at her life.
“Your life doesn’t have to be perfect for you to be proud. In fact, I think it’s the opposite: the more imperfect your life has been, the prouder you should be, because it means you’ve come that much further, and also probably had a lot more fun along the way.”
“During the holidays he was crying looking at it,” Dorsey said. “You can only give him a hug and tell him, ‘I know, life is not fair. Bad things happen and there’s no reason for it, and you just have to do your best to be a good person.’”