Actress Naya Rivera is missing and may have drowned, authorities have said, after the ‘Glee’ star went missing on Wednesday in Lake Piru.
Helicopters, drones and dive teams searched for the 33-year-old actress on Wednesday, after her four-year-old was found floating by himself on a rented boat.
Authorities have now suspended their search-and-rescue operation and plan to continue on Thursday.
Rivera rented the boat at around 1pm. Around three hours later, her son was spotted in the boat by himself, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.
Another boater notified authorities, prompting a search for Rivera.
Rivera’s final tweet came a day before the incident. On July 8, she posted an image, apparently with her son, where the two had their faces pressed closed together, with the caption: “Just the two of us.”
The police earlier mistakenly identified the child as a three-year-old girl.
“The three-year-old girl said that she had been swimming with her mother and that she got back on the boat and her mom didn’t. We know that the girl had a life vest on, there was another adult life vest found on the boat,” said Capt Eric Buschow.
Rivera's four-year-old son is from a marriage with actor Ryan Dorsey. The couple finalised their divorce in June 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.
She called her young son "my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him" in her 2016 memoir 'Sorry Not Sorry.'
The actress was engaged to rapper Big Sean in 2013, but their relationship ended a year later. The pair met on Twitter and collaborated musically, with the rapper appearing on Rivera's debut single 'Sorry.'
Rivera played Santana, a cheerleader in the musical-comedy 'Glee' that aired on Fox from 2009 until 2015. She appeared in 113 episodes of the series and dated co-star Mark Salling, who killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.
This story is developing.
- With inputs from AP
