Body of actress Naya Rivera found at Lake Piru after six-day search
A body found at Lake Piru in Southern California has been identified as “Glee” actress Naya Rivera, according to Ventura County Sheriff.
USA TODAY
Like mother, like son: Naya Rivera’s child is set to make his film acting debut.
Josey Dorsey, son of the late “Glee” star and her ex-husband Ryan Dorsey, will appear opposite his dad in the upcoming movie “The Burning Valley,” according to the IMDb page for the project. A representative for Ryan Dorsey confirmed the casting.
This will be the first movie role for Dorsey, 10. The film is “about a steelworker who loses his job when the mill announces a shutdown,” director Evan Coury previously told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “It sets him on a journey as he wanders through his Rust Belt town.”
Rivera, best known for her role as Santana Lopez on the Fox series “Glee,” died in July 2020 at age 33. The actress drowned in California’s Lake Piru after renting a boat and going out on the water with Josey, then 4.
After Rivera and her son jumped into the water, “the boat was getting away from them, and she told him to go back to the boat, and he swam back to the boat,” Ryan Dorsey said in a 2025 interview with People magazine.
“I still can’t figure out, it doesn’t make much sense, how he was able to get on and she wasn’t,” he told People, adding, “[Josey] said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore. It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”
Rivera was married to Ryan Dorsey, an actor who has had roles on shows like “Justified” and “Palm Royale,” from 2014 to 2018. They welcomed their son in 2015.
Though “The Burning Valley” will mark Josey Dorsey’s first movie, he previously acted in a West Virginia theater production of “Seussical Jr.” in 2024, according to KTVB7.
Speaking to E! News in 2023, Ryan Dorsey shared how his son, then 7, was already showing an interest in acting and wanted to start his own YouTube channel.
“He’s able to read scripts,” he said. “I actually had a scene for an audition one time where he read the other lines because I was supposed to be reading it with a kid. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time where he can help me with my auditions because we live together. … He actually did his first talent show at school a couple of months ago. It was him and his little friend and they did a little comedy act. He got quite a laugh from the audience and he just hammed it up.”
Ryan Dorsey also told E! that while he wants to make sure his son has as “normal of a life as he can,” he “can’t help but think he’ll be a natural” at acting. In an Instagram post last September celebrating his son’s birthday, Dorsey wrote that he “cannot believe how fast you’ve become the strong, curious, funny, bright and intelligent 10 year old that you are today.”