Featured Image Credit: David Livingston/Getty Images
Topics: Naya Rivera, Celebrity, US News
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Naya Rivera, Celebrity, US News
Ryan Dorsey - the ex-husband of late Glee actress Naya Rivera, who tragically drowned in 2020 whilst swimming with their son - has lifted the lid on his grief this week for the first time in five years.
The 41-year-old spoke to PEOPLE magazine about the impact that the TV star's death has had on their family - particularly their nine-year-old son Josey - and admitted there's one thing the incident has left him unable to do.
Dorsey and Rivera had been divorced for two years and one month when she was fatally pulled beneath the waters of Lake Piru, California on 8 July 2020, after renting a boat with her son, Josey.
The 'Santana Lopez' star was just 33 when she was declared missing by authorities, after the youngster was found alone onboard the vessel - which had been without an anchor or floatation device - wearing a life jacket.
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After discovering her body in a remote part of the water five days later, police ruled that she'd sacrificed her own life for that of her little boy that fateful day.
In the years that followed the incident, Josey, now nine, was raised by his father, Dorsey, who himself opted not to discuss Rivera's death with the press in a bid to give his son some privacy.
This week, however, he broke his silence in a bombshell interview with press, and speaking to PEOPLE magazine, Dorsey looked back on the moment he discovered his former flame was missing.
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He explained that he'd been in Ralphs supermarket when Rivera's mother, Yolanda, called to inform him of the news.
"I instantly said, 'What do you mean? She knows how to swim,'" Dorsey told the publication. "She said, ‘They jumped in, and Josey got back on, and they’re trying to find Naya.'
"I collapsed into a pallet of drinks. I didn’t know what to think, but I feared the worst."
And though it's been five years since Rivera's death, Dorsey claimed he still feels a sting everyday - particularly when he looks at her photographs.
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"I've never been one to talk about my life like this," he admitted. "I've turned down so many of these kind of things, because it was too hard.
"I still can't really look at pictures of her, and it's still hard to talk, but I feel like I'm ready.
"There's just so much that happened."
Dorsey went on to reveal that their son still has harrowing memories of watching his mother sink beneath the waves.
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"He said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore," he revealed.
"It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments."
The father-of-one added that Josey is still riddled with guilt over the notion that his mother exchanged her life for his.
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"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 explained. "I keep reassuring him, 'Buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.'
"That obviously still sticks out in his head because he feels like he could have saved her. I think she just got caught up in a brush — that or a weird undercurrent from the dam.
"It was just a freak occurrence."