Chris Colfer Shared His Most Memorable Naya Rivera Stories
He penned a moving essay about his 'Glee' co-star.
Following the tragic death of Naya Rivera, many of her co-stars and friends have spoken out about her life and their relationships with her. Now, Rivera’s Glee co-star Chris Colfer has written an essay about his friend, including some of his favorite memories with her.
Colfer’s piece for Variety first talks about how talented Rivera was as an actor and singer, effortlessly memorizing scripts, presenting even the most outlandish Glee storylines authentically, and singing so that she will “break your heart in one chorus, only to rebuild it in the next.”
“How could a human being be that talented, that hilarious and that beautiful at once?” Colfer writes. “How could one person be responsible for so much joy and be the subject of so many wonderful memories?”
In particular, Colfer remembers Rivera’s humor and the one-liners she would say on set.
“On particularly rough days of filming, you might find her outside enjoying a cigarette in her bright red cheerleading uniform,” he writes. “She would raise an invisible glass and say, ‘To being role models!’ or ‘City of dreams, huh?’” When the cast would talk about their long hours, “Naya would instantly cheer us up with a line like, ‘Gosh, this internship blows!’ or ‘Guys, we know what we signed up for. The first person to guess the mole gets the cash.’”
Colfer also remembers Rivera talking about wanting to become a mother someday. “She spent hours telling us what she was going to name her kids, how she was going to dress them and all the free babysitting she’d bamboozle out of us,” the actor writes. “Being a mom was perhaps Naya’s greatest talent of all, and as her final moments proved, Naya was an extraordinary mother until the very end.”
On July 14th, Rivera’s death was confirmed by authorities as an accidental drowning. According to reports, she saved her 4-year-old son, Josey, in her final moments.
A few days earlier, the 33-year-old actor had rented a pontoon boat with Josey at Lake Piru in California. About three hours after she rented the boat, the boat was spotted with only Josey aboard, wearing a life jacket.
Rivera’s death is devastating to those who knew her, but Colfer is reminding himself—and others—to live the way she did. “She is a shining example of the impact a person can have when one lives fearlessly,” Colfer writes. “Her loss is a tragic reminder to celebrate every moment we possibly can with the people we love because the only thing we know for certain about life is how fragile it can be.”
