Glee actress Naya Rivera’s final words before drowning revealed
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.
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he “will not back down” from Russia’s goals in Ukraine during a phone call today, the Kremlin has said.
The Russian president spoke to his US counterpart for almost an hour, and Mr Trump “again raised the issue of an early end to military action” in Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
In response, Mr Putin said “Russia will not back down” from its aims there, which include “the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Mr Ushakov said.
The phrase “root causes” is shorthand for Moscow’s argument that it was compelled to invade Ukraine in order to prevent the country from joining NATO.
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Trump and Putin’s latest call on Ukraine
Ukraine and its European allies say this is a pretext to justify what they call an imperial-style war, but Mr Trump has previously shown sympathy with Russia.
At the same time, Mr Putin told the US president that Russia is ready to continue negotiating, the aide said.
The Russian president said any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine give up its NATO bid and recognise his country’s territorial gains.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, seen with Mr Trump in June, is pushing for Ukraine to join NATO. Pic: Reuters
He also briefed Mr Trump on agreements made last month, which saw Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners of war and dead soldiers.
Specific dates for the third round of peace talks in Istanbul were not discussed – nor was the US decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s call came after the Pentagon confirmed some weapons due to be sent to Ukraine have been held as it reviews military stockpiles.
The paused shipments include air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, two people familiar with the situation have said.
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The decision led to Ukraine calling in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington.
Kyiv also cautioned that the move would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against intensifying Russian airstrikes and battlefield advances.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s phone call was the sixth they have publicly disclosed since the US president returned to the White House in January.
Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ has been passed by the US congress, sending it to the president to sign into law.
The controversial tax breaks and spending cuts package cleared its final hurdle as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the bill with a 218-214 vote.
The bill delivers tax breaks Mr Trump promised in his 2024 election campaign, cuts health and food safety programmes, and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will lower tax revenues by $4.5trn over 10 years and add $3.4trn to the US’s $36.2trn debt.
But despite concerns over the 869-page bill’s price tag – and its hit to healthcare programmes – Republicans largely lined up in support, with just two rebelling on the vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is congratulated following the vote. Pic: Reuters
Every Democrat in Congress voted against the bill, blasting it as a giveaway to the wealthy that will leave millions of Americans uninsured.
House Speaker Mike Johnson made the Republicans’ closing argument for the bill, telling Congress: “For everyday Americans, this means real, positive change that they can feel.”
Earlier, the House’s Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries gave a record-breaking eight-hour and 44-minute speech against it.
“The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires,” he said.
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The bill’s spending cuts largely target Medicaid, the health programme that covers 71 million Americans on low incomes.
It will tighten enrolment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments.
The changes could leave nearly 12 million people without health insurance, according to the CBO.
On the other side of the ledger, it will stave off tax increases that were due to hit most Americans at the end of the year, when tax cuts from President Trump’s first term were due to expire.
It also sets up new tax breaks for overtime pay, seniors and tipped income.
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The bill narrowly passed the US Senate on Tuesday after vice president JD Vance cast the deciding vote to break a 50-50 tie.
Mr Trump will sign it into law on Friday at 5pm local time (10pm in the UK), the White House said.
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