Son of Ryan Dorsey and 'Glee' star Naya Rivera tried to throw rope at her before she drowned: report
Ryan Dorsey, the ex-husband of Glee star Naya Rivera who drowned in 2020, recounted how their then 4-year-old son desperately tried to aid his mother in her final moments.
In an interview with PEOPLE Magazine, Ryan said Josey, now 9, still holds guilt for not being able to save Naya as he watched her drown while they were swimming off a rental boat in Lake Piru in California.
"Something he’s said over and over is that he was trying to find a life raft, and there was a rope, but there was a big spider on the rope, and he was too scared to throw it," Ryan said. "I keep reassuring him, ‘Buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.'"
Josey, according to the Ray Donovan actor, also remembered that it was windy that day and that he was worried about getting into the water. He said Naya told him, "Don't be silly!"
Naya then noticed the boat, which had no anchor or flotation devices, was drifting.
She told Josey to swim back and he remembered grabbing "the tanks" and pulling himself "around the boat."
PEOPLE noted that according to the incident report, Naya drowned after exhausting herself and getting Josey back on the boat.
“He said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore," Ryan said. "It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”
Ryan said he learned about Naya going missing via a call from her mother's husband. He was in a supermarket getting food for a friend's birthday barbecue.
“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” he said. “I feared the worst.”
He went to Lake Piru immediately.
“I drove 100-and-something the whole way with my four-way hazards on, chain-smoking cigarettes — and I don’t even smoke, really — and just crying,” he said. “I just wanted to get to Josey.”
Josey had been found sleeping alone on the boat Naya had rented three hours earlier that day.
Ryan said he doesn't know how he would continue with life if Josey also died.
"I don't know what I would've done, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been good," he added.
Naya died on July 8, 2020, at 33. She was found after five days of searching.
Ryan said they made Josey a book of memories sitting by his bed, and he was crying looking at it during the holidays.
"You can only give him a hug and tell him, 'I know, life is not fair. Bad things happen and there's no reason for it, and you just have to do your best to be a good person,'" he said.
Still, Ryan said Josey is "such a happy kid" who "wakes up happy."
"I’m trying to be the best parent that I can be and raise a good little man," he said. "He gives me a reason to keep going with my life."
Ryan and Naya met in 2010 and briefly dated. They got together again in 2014 and got married the same year. Josey was born the following year.
Naya filed for divorce from Ryan in 2016 but called it off in October 2017. She refiled for divorce in December of that year and was finalized in 2018. They shared joint custody of Josey.
In November 2020, Ryan, on behalf of Josey, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lake Piru managers and local police.
