Jane Lynch Reflects on the Deaths of Glee’s Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera

July is a bittersweet time for Jubilation community.

This month marks 11 years since the graduate Cory Monteith died of a drug overdose, four years after a colleague’s death Naya Rivera as a result of a boating accident.

“This is exactly what youth is like” Jane Lynchwho played cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on the show, said E News exclusively at the Critics Choice Real TV Awards on June 15 about working with her two co-stars. “They were so excited, and so were we. We knew we were breathing rarefied air when the show became such a hit.”

The Weak link The presenter continued: “This has created a big hole in our lives.”

Rivera, who played glee club member and cheerleader Santana Lopez in Jubilationdrowned in Lake Piru, California on July 8, 2020, while on a boat ride with her son Josienow 7. The actress was 33 years old.

Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, a singer from Jubilationwas found dead in a hotel room in his native Canada on July 13, 2013. The 31-year-old, who had struggled with drug addiction his entire life, died from a combination of heroin and alcohol.