In exceedingly horrible news, actress Naya Rivera is missing and presumed dead after taking a boating trip with her four-year-old son.
The actress, best known for her role on “Glee,” rented a boat at Lake Piru in southern California on Wednesday. Her son was spotted drifting alone in the boat later that afternoon. He reportedly told investigators that he and his mom had been swimming, but that she never got back in the boat.
As the story continues to unfold, we wanted to celebrate some of the sweet moments Rivera shared with her son Josey.
Rivera and her then-husband, Ryan Dorsey, announced they were expecting their first child in early 2015. Rivera was super candid about her pregnancy, writing a blog about it for People.
“Hearing the birth and pregnancy stories of other moms has been my favourite part and is extremely helpful during these nine months of change,” she wrote. “So getting to share a bit about my journey is really thrilling.”
That August, she posed in a series of pregnancy photos for Yahoo, and talked about her experience.
“There’s a lot, physically, that changes with your body when you’re pregnant,” she said. “Being in the public eye when you’re pregnant is really, really hard, and people can be so mean on the Internet, it’s insane. Pregnancy is such a beautiful time to me, and I feel like you should embrace your body in whatever stage it’s in.”
Rivera gave birth to her son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, on September 15, 2017. In the first photo she shared of him, on Halloween, Josey was smiling and wearing a skeleton-themed onesie.
She went on to post many sweet photos of her son, including pics of Josey meeting Santa, hanging out with her dog, and generally being adorable.
In 2016, Rivera talked to People about the how much she valued her bond with her son. “The love I get from him. Little things like the two kisses he stood up and gave me last night to say thank you for making him mac and cheese from scratch,” she said.
“It’s a love never found anywhere or with anyone else.”
In the last few years, Rivera started designing a children’s clothing line, in part because of how many compliments her son got on his outfits.
“When I dropped him off this morning at preschool, there was a substitute teacher and she was like, ‘I need to go shopping with you, Josey,’” she told Us Weekly last spring. “He was wearing fringe pants.”
Last November, Josey watched some clips from his mom’s show “Glee” and told her he wanted to be an actor.
“He told me the other day because we were watching a song from Glee — he had never really seen it — and he goes, ‘Why I aren’t I on the TV?’” she told Us Weekly. “I’m like, ‘You weren’t born yet!’ And he’s like, ‘But I wanna be on TV.’”
Rivera continued to post more photos of herself with her son over the last few months.
On Wednesday, just before she went missing, she posted a photo of her cuddling Josey, with the caption “Just the two of us.”
This story will be updated when more information about Rivera is released.
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