Demi Lovato, Chris Colfer, and Darren
Criss are among the Glee stars posting tributes to Naya
Rivera.
Rivera's body was found on Monday after
an intense six-day search which started with the finding of her
4-year-old son, Josey, in a boat Rivera had rented on Lake Piru in
California. Her body was recovered from the lake on the morning of
July 13. Josey told investigators that they went into the lake to
swim and that his mom did not return to the boat.
Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said
that Rivera saved her son before she died.
“She mustered enough energy to get
her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself,” he
said.
Rivera is best known for playing
Santana Lopez on Fox's musical comedy Glee.
In the show's fifth
season, Demi Lovato played the love interest of Rivera's Santana.
“RIP Naya Rivera,” Lovato wrote on
Instagram. “I'll forever cherish the opportunity to play your
girlfriend on Glee. The character you played was
groundbreaking for tons of closeted queer girls (like me at the time)
and open queer girls, and your ambition and accomplishments were
inspiring to Latina women all over the world.”
“My heart goes out to your loved ones
at this time,” she added.
Dianna Agron, who played Quinn on Glee,
called Rivera her “first friend and ally on our show.”
Out actor Chris Colfer, who played Kurt
Hummel, also remembered Rivera.
“Being close to her was both a badge
of honor and a suit of armor,” he wrote on Instagram. “Naya was
truly one of a kind, and she always will be.”
Colfer's onscreen boyfriend, Darren
Criss, called Rivera “bold, outrageous, and a LOT of fun” in
remembering her.
“Naya made me laugh like no one else
on that set,” Criss, who portrayed Blaine Anderson on Glee,
said in a post, adding that her humor was her “gift.”
“And it's a gift that will never go
away,” he wrote. “Rest in peace you wild, hilarious, beautiful
angel.”