Naya Rivera was heartbroken by 'Glee' star Cory Monteith's death, regretted not confronting him over addiction
'Glee' star Naya Rivera, who went missing after going for a swim with her 4-year-old son in Lake Piru, California, on July 8, had spoken out about the different kinds of relationships she had with her costars on the show. She had a remarkable bond of friendship with actor Cory Monteith, who died of a toxic drug combination in July 2013 in a hotel room in Vancouver, Canada.
The pair had a sibling-like relationship and she knew about Monteith's struggles with different forms of addiction. As a result, she wrote in her book 'Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes & Growing Up' in 2016 that she was surprised to see him consuming alcohol in the cast party to celebrate filming their final episode.
"When he decided to order a cocktail, it was the first time we had ever seen him drink," wrote Naya. "He explained that he wanted to be able to drink in moderation, that he could do it and be just like everybody else. He seemed calm and confident about it, so we all just accepted it. To be honest, I don’t think many of us really understood how addiction worked. Nor did we fully realize the extent of his former addiction."
Naya also added that her friendship with Cory deteriorated when he began dating Lea Michele, another of their 'Glee' costars in 2011. Naya did not have the best of relationships with Lea as the show progressed as the latter was accused of bullying and harassing other stars of the show on set. "The more serious they got, the less Cory hung out with us and the more he seemed like a different person," Naya explained in her 2016 book.
Despite her feud with Lea, which neither of the stars initially admitted publicly, Naya said that she was pleased that Lea was having a positive impact on Cory's life and was a stable influence as he battled addiction. "My personal feelings for Lea aside, I knew that she wasn’t a partier, so I felt like maybe their relationship could actually be good for him," added Naya.
The news of Cory's untimely death hit Naya when she was in London with her then-boyfriend, Big Sean, and she was heartbroken by it. "I doubt I'm alone in feeling a lot of regret about his death," confessed Naya, who never hid her feelings and expressed them honestly. "Since he died, a lot of us have spent time wondering and talking about what would have happened if someone had stepped in or confronted him about what was going on."
She added: "Or what if he'd been trying to talk to someone about what was going on and just thought no one cared? Like, maybe that one time when it was just the two of us walking out to our cars, maybe if I would have just walked a little bit slower and hadn't been in such a hurry to get home, maybe he would have seen it as an opportunity to bring something up. You can drive yourself crazy like that, because no number of ifs will ever make anything different."