Emergency services are searching for actress Naya Rivera after she went missing at a California lake on Wednesday evening.
She is presumed dead. Rivera rented a boat and took it out on Lake Piru in Ventura County with her 4-year-old son. Police later discovered the boat with her son, Josey, on board. Josey was wearing a life jacket. An adult-sized life jacket, presumably Rivera’s, was still on board.
Over the years, there have been a number of drowning incidents at the lake.
On Tuesday, Rivera posted a photo of her and her young son with the words “just the two of us.” The post has become a rallying place where people have been able to post well-wishes and prayers for the actress.
Rivera is most well known for her role as Santana Lopez in the popular television show Glee. Heather Morris, who played Rivera’s love interest on the show, Brittany S. Pierce, is asking for prayers as the search continues.
“We need all the prayers we can get to bring our Naya back home to us. We need your love and light,” she said.
Rivera’s disappearance is just the latest in a string of horrors for members of the show’s cast and crew, which has been famously dubbed “the Glee curse.”
In 2013, Cory Monteith, who played one of the show’s lead roles, Finn Hudson, died after an accidental drug overdose. Months after that, Nancy Moates, a production assistant for the show and the sister of Julia Roberts, died in an apparent suicide.
In 2017, Mark Salling, who played Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the show, pleaded guilty to possession of pornographic images of prepubescent children after a search revealed more than 50,000 images of child pornography on Salling’s computer and a thumb drive. Shortly thereafter, Salling also died by suicide.
Last year, Glee star Melissa Benoist, who played the show’s Marley Rose and is now the star of CW’s Super Girl, shared that she has been a victim of intense domestic abuse. Although Benoist did not name her abuser, one particular story aligns with one she told when she was still married to her former Glee co-star Blake Jenner.
Search efforts for Rivera paused for a while during the evening but resumed early Thursday morning.
