Naya Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Dorsey has – for the first time – shared details from the day she died.
Speaking to People, the 41-year-old actor said that “the last thing she said was his (her son’s) name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore”.
The Glee actress, 33, died after drowning in a California lake in July 2020 – when she was swimming with her young son Josey.
Josey, who was four at the time, told police his mother had boosted him on to the deck – after their boat had drifted away.
Local police said they believe that after saving her son, Rivera did not have enough energy to save herself.
Dorsey says his son, now nine, told him he was worried about getting into the water – and that Rivera had said, “don’t be silly!”.
The boat that Naya Rivera was using when she went missing. Pic: Reuters /Mario Anzuoni
“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,” Dorsey told People.
“I keep reassuring him, buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.'”
Dorsey added: “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”
Naya Rivera is best-known for starring in Glee. Pic: Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP
The actor says he found out that Rivera was first missing after receiving a call from her stepfather – while he was in a supermarket buying food for a friend’s barbeque.
“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” Dorsey said. “I feared the worst.”
Ryan Dorsey and Naya Rivera. Pic: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Dorsey said he immediately got into his car and drove 145 miles to Lake Piru, where Rivera and their son had been swimming.
“I drove 100-and-something the whole way with my four-way hazards on, chain-smoking cigarettes – and I don’t even smoke, really – and just crying,” he says. “I just wanted to get to Josey.
“If we’d have lost both Naya and Josey, I don’t know how I would continue on with my life.”
He added: “When it happened, I just found myself shaking my head, like, I can’t believe she’s gone. It’s still so surreal every day.”
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Dorsey says the holiday period is particularly tough for his nine-year-old son.
He said: “We made this book of memories for Josey that sits by his bed, and during the holidays he was crying looking at it.
“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.'”
In 2022, a lawsuit filed by Rivera’s family against Ventura County, California, over her drowning was privately settled.
Naya Rivera on the red carpet. Pic: Reuters
The lawsuit for wrongful death and negligent infliction of emotional distress was filed on behalf of her son.
The family also sued the United Water Conservation District and Parks and Recreation Management, accusing them of failing to warn visitors of the danger of boating and swimming in the lake, and saying Rivera’s death was “utterly preventable”.
They said the rented pontoon boat was not equipped with flotation or lifesaving devices, a ladder, rope, anchor, or any equipment designed to keep swimmers from being separated from their boat.
However, Ventura County officials said the death wasn’t their fault, and said the actress had declined to wear a life jacket. They said the rental agent had put the life jacket in the boat nevertheless.
