On July 8, 2020, Glee star Naya Rivera rented a boat and took her young son Josey out on a lake in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, that was also her last day alive. The 33-year-old went swimming with her 4-year-old son but sadly she drowned in the lake. Another boat had seen their boat drifting away with Josey fast asleep in it and unharmed.
According to the medical examiner, Rivera drowned after exhausting herself while struggling to get her son back into the boat.
Speaking to People.com, George Rivera, 64 spoke about receiving a FaceTime call from his daughter just before the unfortunate incident.
“She would always bounce stuff off me,” he said. “And she wanted to go swimming with Josey out in the middle of the lake“.
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However, when Rivera informed him that the boat didn’t have an anchor, he instantly realized that jumping into the lake for a swim was a bad idea. “I could see that the wind was blowing and my stomach was just cringing,” he recalled. “I kept telling her, ‘Don’t get out of the boat! Don’t get out of the boat! It will drift away when you’re in the water.'”
After about three minutes, their FaceTime call cut off. “It was just heartbreaking,” He added. “I had this bad feeling that was just killing me,”
A couple hours later, he got a phone call saying Naya Rivera had been declared missing. Five days later, her body was found floating in a remote section of the lake by the authorities.
“It’s still pretty much a big blur of pain almost a year later. Things are slowly coming a little more into focus, but I don’t know if I’ll ever find closure from this. I miss her every day.” He also added.