The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office confirms it has recovered the body of Naya Rivera from a California lake. Divers have been searching the lake since shortly after Naya Rivera disappeared on July 8 while boating with her 4-year-old son.
Best known for her starring role on the Fox show Glee, the actor is presumed to have drowned on Wednesday while boating on Lake Piru in the Los Padres National Forest, not far from Los Angeles. Rivera was 33 years old.
Sheriff William “Bill” Ayub says Rivera was not wearing a life vest, though one was found on the boat.
For six seasons, from 2009 to 2015, Rivera played the role of an unexpectedly popular television antihero. Glee’s Santana Lopez was a cynical, initially closeted high school cheerleader with charisma to burn and an ax to grind. “The only straight I am is straight-up bitch,” Santana announced in Season 2. But the character’s bullying eventually yielded to team spirit and a tender romance with another cheerleader, the sweet natured but dim Brittany.
Glee fans pushed for the storyline, which became one of the most popular arcs on the show. “Who knows if the writers would have taken that relationship so seriously if there hadn’t been such an outpouring for them to get together,” Rivera told The Los Angeles Times in 2011.