Actor and singer Naya Rivera, best known for her role on the television series Glee, is missing after possibly drowning in a California lake, police said late Wednesday.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office identified Rivera, 33, as the person reported missing in Lake Piru, which lies roughly an hour northwest of Los Angeles.
Officials turned the search into a “recovery mission” after hours of searching the lake with no sign of Rivera Wednesday evening and Thursday.
“That hasn’t changed anything, and the efforts that we’re putting forth to locate her,” sheriff’s Deputy Chris Dyer said Thursday. “It kind of changes the title in a sense. We’re presuming that an accident happened, and we’re presuming that she drowned in the lake.”
Officials said that Rivera rented a boat Wednesday afternoon with her four-year-old son. Hours later, the boy was found in the boat by himself. He told investigators that he and his mother had been swimming and he got back in the boat but Rivera did not.
Rivera rose to stardom in the role of cheerleader Santana Lopez in Glee, whom she played throughout the show’s run between 2009 and 2015. She later launched a singing career while continuing as an actor.
Rivera’s son is from her marriage to actor Ryan Dorsey. The couple finalized their divorce in June 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.
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She called her young son “my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him” in her 2016 memoir Sorry Not Sorry.
The actress was engaged to rapper Big Sean in 2013, but their relationship ended a year later. The pair met on Twitter and collaborated musically, with the rapper appearing on Rivera’s debut single Sorry.
— With files from the Associated Press
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