Jane Lynch’s touching story about Naya Rivera proves the late actress had a heart of gold.
The 60-year-old actress shared a message her niece had originally posted on Instagram about the late star, whose body was found on Monday at California’s Lake Piru. The actress went missing while on a boating trip to the Los Angeles-area reservoir with her 4-year-old son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, on July 8. When the actress failed to return her rental boat on time, employees searched for the missing watercraft and discovered Josey on board alone wearing a life vest.
I hope my lovely niece @Meg_Doyle won’t mind my sharing her Insta post. This was @NayaRivera pic.twitter.com/kbdgZeakqT
— Jane Lynch (@janemarielynch) July 14, 2020
“I hope my lovely niece @Meg_Doyle won’t mind my sharing her Insta post. This was @NayaRivera,” Jane tweeted on Tuesday.
Meg’s original post told the story of how Naya befriended her when she moved to Los Angeles and didn’t have many friends.
“I was an assistant on the Glee tour in 2009, and then I moved to LA in 2010. I ran into Naya at a bar – we hadn’t seen each other in a year. I didn’t really have any friends in LA yet. She was wearing overalls and a bra. That’s it. And she was killing it. Obviously. She said, ‘Let’s hang out,’ grabbed my phone and punched her number in. And so it began. She took me under her wing,” Doyle wrote.
“Brought me into her crew. It didn’t matter that I was a lowly assistant at the time. When I think of my first four years in Los Angeles, I think of Naya.”
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She then went on to describe how Naya’s presence always made her feel like a stronger person.
“Being in Naya’s presence made me feel larger than life. It was like anxious Megan absorbed Naya’s fearless spirit by osmosis. When you were around her, you just . . . bloomed. Anyone in Naya’s crew had a feisty, witty, 110 pound bodyguard on their side. She always had a mischievous glimmer in her eye and she always knew more than she let on. She was the rock of her family. She had a knack for seeing through someone’s bullsh*t, and she knew if I was lying when I said I was okay. She also had a knack for dropping a filthy one-liner, exiting the room and leaving us with our jaws on the floor.”
“She didn’t know how f*cking beautiful she was, but I believe she knew how talented she was, and I loved that about her,” Meg continued. “Watching Naya perform everyday, whether she was on set knocking out a 3 page monologue in one take, or belting Amy Winehouse in her car, or performing a lazy striptease during our talent shows – it never grew old, she always took my breath away. People grow apart, drift in and out of your life. I always figured she would drift back into mine. Naya was a force. I feel lucky to have known and loved her.”
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“Tell your people you love them. Let sh*t go. Life is short,” she concluded.
Meg and Jane are hardly the only people mourning Naya’s sudden passing. Chris Colfer, Jenna Ushkowitz, Becca Tobin and Kristin Chenoweth all penned heartfelt tributes while Naya’s other Hollywood pals and acquaintances, including Bebe Rexha and Viola Davis, also spoke out about the sad loss.
Naya Rivera & Son Josey Sweet Photos Together
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