GleeHeather Morris remembers late
Published on January 15, 2026 EDT Rivera was confirmed dead following a boating trip with her son four years ago this week.

Heather Morris still has a lot of love for her late Glee costar Naya Rivera.

On Monday, Morris marked the fourth anniversary of Rivera's death with a loving tribute on Instagram. "God you're missed so much," she wrote, "except I can't shake the feeling you never left…you’re still here with us..guiding us to our highest potential."

Rivera was confirmed dead on July 13, 2020, several days after having gone missing on a boating trip that she and her son, then 4-year-old Josey Hollis Dorsey, had taken on Lake Piru in Ventura County, Calif. The boy had been found drifting alone in a pontoon his mom had rented. Josey, the son of Rivera's ex-husband, Ryan Dorsey, whom she had divorced in 2018, told officials that he and his mom had been swimming together and that she had never returned to the boat. She was 33.

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Over the years, Rivera's former castmates have remembered her as "a light."

On the Fox show, which aired for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, Rivera played cheerleader Santana Lopez, who was in a relationship with Morris' character, Brittany S. Pierce.

Jane Lynch, who played the cranky cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, commented on the anniversaries of the Glee cast losing both Rivera and Cory Monteith, who played jock and New Directions crooner Puck, in an interview published this week. Monteith died July 13, 2016, of "mixed drug toxicity, involving heroin and alcohol," at 31.

"Just such youth," she told E! News at a red carpet event. "They were so excited, as we all were. We knew that we were breathing rarefied air when the show became such a big hit."

She added, "There's a big hole in our lives because of that."

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