Naya Rivera, who died in a tragic accident in California’s Lake Piru, leaves behind a four-year-old son she shares with ex-husband Ryan Dorsey.
Beloved by Glee fans, the mum-of-one rose to global fame playing cheerleader Santana Lopez on the hit musical series.
Rivera became a missing person on Wednesday, July 8, after her son, Josey, was found floating alone on her rented boat at Lake Piru, at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest.
The actress gave birth to Josey in 2014 – a year after tying the knot with Dorsey in Mexico.
Naya Rivera and Ryan Dorsey married in 2014 and welcomed son Josey a year later (Image: Getty Images North America)
In November 2016, she filed for divorce after two years of marriage, but called off the separation in October 2017.
Her relationship with Dorsey took a nosedive when Rivera was arrested on a domestic battery charge on Thanksgiving weekend in 2017, but the charges against her were later dropped.
She subsequently refiled for divorce in December 2017, and the pair split custody of Josey.
Naya also revealed that she’d had an abortion in 2010, shortly after they first split, as her career on Glee was starting to take off.
Rivera and Dorsey had dated for years before their marriage, but the star struck up a romance with rapper Big Sean and the pair took their relationship to the next step when they became engaged in 2013.
Big Sean and Rivera became engaged in 2013 but broke off their relationship six months later (Image: AFF/PA Images)
The former couple met through Twitter, and at the time, Rivera explained to Access Hollywood: “I had followed him, and he sent me a little message like, ‘I’m a fan.” She shared: “We went to dinner and the rest is history.”
However, six months later a trip down the aisle was called off – as rumours swirled around him cheating with Ariana Grande – and the news was confirmed by a representative of the MC.
Naya hinted that the singer had a hand in the relationship split, writing in her memoir that she and Big Sean “had been fighting for five straight days while he was travelling, and then on the one day that he was back in LA, he said he didn’t want to see me.”
She added: “Well, a***ole, I’ve got a key to your house. I walk in, go downstairs, and guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music? … It rhymes with Smariana Schmande.”
The pair soon split after their argument, and a representative for the rapper confirmed the wedding had been cancelled.
“After careful thought and much consideration, Sean has made the difficult decision to call the wedding off,” read the statement from Big Sean’s camp to Billboard magazine.
The Glee stars briefly dated but Rivera ended things (Image: Getty Images North America)
During her run as Santana Lopez on FOX’s Glee, Naya Rivera briefly dated co-star Mark Salling, who played the character Puck.
Rivera later revealed in her memoir Sorry Not Sorry that the pair broke up because his publicist claimed she wasn’t good for his image.
“When Mark dumped me, I thought it was the worst thing ever,” she wrote in her book, “but can you imagine if that didn’t happen? And I was laying there in bed when the battering ram came through the door?”
They broke up before he was arrested on child pornography charges, which she said she “wasn’t totally shocked about”.
Sailing took his own life at the age of 35, weeks before he was due to be jailed after pleading guilty to two child pornography charges.
In her 2016 memoir, Rivera said her son, Josey Hollis, was her “greatest success” and that she’ll “never do any better than him.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
