Glee actor Naya Rivera's final words to son revealed

Glee star Naya Rivera’s final words before drowning in a lake in California was her son’s name, her ex-husband has revealed.

In an interview with People, Ryan Dorsey shared new details about how the family have coped with the 33-year-old actor’s death nearly five years ago.

Rivera was declared missing on July 8, 2020, following a trip to Lake Piru, Ventura County on a rented boat. Her son Josey, aged four at the time, told authorities he watched her disappear beneath the water.

A days-long search was prompted after Josey was discovered sleeping alone while wearing a lifejacket alone on the boat.

While swimming, Rivera noticed that the boat was drifting and told her son to swim back.

Ryan Dorsey pictured with Josey in June 2022. / Credit: Instagram/@dorseyryan

Dorsey said his son remembers grabbing “the tanks” and pulling himself “around the boat”, although the incident report into the actor’s death said Rivera drowned after exhausting herself by getting her son back onto the boat.

“He said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore,” he added.

Describing how Josey, now aged nine, still feels “guilt” over what happened to his mother, Dorsey said: “Something he’s said over and over is that he was trying to find a life raft, and there was a rope, but there was a big spider on the rope, and he was too scared to throw it.

“I keep reassuring him, ‘Buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.’ That obviously still sticks out in his head because he feels like he could have saved her.”

A wrongful death lawsuit, in which Dorsey claimed the boat had not been fitted with floatation devices, anchor, or a ladder or rope, was settled privately in March 2022, the LA Times reported.

However, a coroner’s report, had concluded that an adult-sized life vest was on a bench seat behind the boat’s driving area, and Josey was wearing a life jacket when he was found.

Dorsey, whose marriage with Rivera ended prior to her death, but with whom he was successfully co-parenting, shared his theory about how she may have drowned.

“I think she just got caught up in a brush — that or a weird undercurrent from the dam,” he said. “It was just a freak occurrence.”

Dorsey said he lost 40lbs in the immediate aftermath due to grief over Rivera and said he “still can’t look at pictures of her”, adding: “It’s still hard to talk, but I feel like I’m ready. There’s just so much that happened.”

A makeshift memorial for Naya Rivera outside Lake Piru. / Credit: AP

After Rivera’s death, he said he travelled to his home state of West Virginia with Josey to protect him from media coverage. When they returned to Los Angeles, Rivera’s sister, Nickayla, moved in with them for a year to help care for her nephew.

“She was such a big help… she held it down and kept that consistency. It was very surreal sometimes because the way she would say things to Josey would sound like his mom,” he said.

Dorsey said his nine-year-old son sometimes asks him questions he cannot answer.

“We made this book of memories for Josey that sits by his bed, and during the holidays he was crying looking at it,” he 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.’”