Naya Marie Rivera ( ; January 12, 1987July 8, 2020) was an American actress, singer, and model recognized for her work on the popular musical comedy-drama series Glee. She began her career as a child actress and model, first appearing in national television commercials. At the age of four, she landed the role of Hillary Winston on the short-lived CBS sitcom The Royal Family (1991–1992), earning a nomination for a Young Artist Award at age five. After a series of recurring television roles and then guest spots as a teenager, she got her breakthrough role in 2009 as Santana Lopez on the Fox television series Glee. For the role, she received critical acclaim and various awards, including a SAG Award and ALMA Award, as well as earning nominations with the rest of the cast for a Grammy Award and a Brit Award.
She was signed to Columbia Records as a solo musical artist in 2011 and – despite never releasing a studio album – released a single, "Sorry", in 2013. She won two ALMA Awards as a music artist. On the big screen, Rivera made her debut in the horror film At the Devil's Door (2014) before playing a supporting role in the comedy Mad Families (2017). Besides performing, Rivera championed various charitable causes, particularly for LGBT rights, immigrants' rights, and women's rights. She also spoke out against racism, especially in entertainment. Her personal life garnered significant press and media attention throughout her career, and in 2016 she published a memoir titled Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up. Because of her varied roles across her three decades as a performer, Rivera is seen as having been a vanguard of Afro-Latino and LGBTQ representation on television.
On July 8, 2020, Rivera drowned at Lake Piru, near Santa Clarita, California, while saving her four-year-old son when their boating trip went awry. Following a five-day search, her body was recovered from the lake on the morning of July 13. At the time of her death, she was between seasons of the television series Step Up, in which she played Collette Jones.
Early life Naya Marie Rivera was born in Valencia, California, on January 12, 1987. She was raised in Valencia and lived in or around Los Angeles for most of her life. She was of African-American, German, and Puerto Rican descent. When the term "Afro-Latinx" became widespread in the 2010s, she was often identified as such. Her mother, Yolanda Previtire (née White), is a real estate agent and former model, while her father, George Rivera, worked various IT jobs including positions at Disney and Universal Music. Her parents had married in 1986, but divorced in 1996, and her mother was remarried to Charles Previtire in 1999; Rivera was close with her stepfather, but did not really know her grandparents. Her maternal grandmother was Clara White, an abortion counselor and figure in the civil rights movement who was involved in the March on Washington, Selma to Montgomery marches, and 1968 Chicago riots, and who organized protests with Alternative web view: https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/21852372?h=39f8df and was represented by activist and lawyer Lloyd Barbee.
Rivera did not grow up speaking Spanish at home, but understood it and later learned to speak it. She was the oldest of three children: her younger brother is former NFL tight end Mychal Rivera (b. 1990), and her younger sister is runway model Nickayla Rivera (b. 1994). During the time her parents were married, the family's income would fluctuate dramatically, sometimes allowing them to live lavishly, and other times leaving them struggling; when they were in financial difficulty, Rivera approved the use of some of the money she earned as a child that was set aside in her Coogan account. The family owned a boat and often went boating when Rivera was a child; she still enjoyed boating as an adult and took many trips to Lake Piru near her home, which she considered a "sanctuary".
At 8 or 9 months old, Rivera began to be represented by the same talent agent as her mother, who had moved to Los Angeles to pursue modeling. Rivera was a fan of Michael Jackson from a young age and became friends with one of Jackson's nieces as a child actress on the audition circuit, visiting Neverland Ranch twice (though not with Jackson present). She also met Tupac Shakur as a child; he was a fan of her acting and went over to introduce himself after spotting her family at LAX. Rivera attended Valencia High School in Santa Clarita and graduated in 2005. Her mother had convinced her to join a choir in her freshman year, but she quit it after a few weeks because she was constantly overlooked for classmate Nazanin Mandi. She challenged Mandi to a sing-off for a solo, but Mandi declined and so Rivera left. She had wanted to be a cheerleader, but her family could not afford this. Instead of high school activities, Rivera spent her free time at acting auditions. She suffered with anorexia as a teenager, something she opened up about as an adult. In 2019, Rivera described her high school experience as "terrible", indicating at other times that part of this was her attitude towards education (compared to her career), the lack of coffee served there, and racism.
Career 1991–2008: The Royal Family and early career Rivera appeared in commercials for Kmart as a baby, but her first significant acting job was at the age of four when she appeared as Hillary Winston on the CBS sitcom The Royal Family in 1991. As she could not read the scripts, she learned her lines by reciting and memorizing them. This skill stayed with her, as she was known for learning lines quickly and always performed them perfectly on set. The show received positive reviews and high ratings initially, but star Redd Foxx suffered a fatal heart attack on set in October 1991, which Rivera witnessed; the series was retooled after Foxx's death, but was eventually canceled. Rivera wrote that she and Foxx "were intergenerational BFFs from the moment [they] met", and that she considered him like a grandfather. Watching Foxx die in front of her at a young age affected her career, particularly around filming season finales. She said that on The Royal Family she "fell in love with being on TV"; she received a Young Artist Award nomination for her performance in the series.
As a child and teen actor between 1992 and 2002, Rivera was part of the golden age of black sitcoms, and had roles in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters, The Jersey, Live Shot, Baywatch, Smart Guy, House Blend, Even Stevens and The Master of Disguise. In 2002, she also appeared in the music video for B2K's "Why I Love You". She then had a guest appearance on The Bernie Mac Show in 2002, before returning to the show for ten episodes throughout its five-season run. Growing up mixed-race in the entertainment industry, she found that her ethnicity could both help and stifle her opportunities; sometimes she found that she could not be typecast by casting directors because she "wasn't Black enough, or Latina enough" and struggled to get roles as either ethnicity, but has also said that she "could play a lot of different ethnicities, from just plain old dark-skinned white girl, to Latino, to African-American", broadening the roles she could audition for. This also concerned her, feeling that she may have been chosen for modeling jobs to be the "ethnic girl". In 2016, she discussed how she still faced racism in casting at this point in her career, using the example of an audition where she was told that the part was instead cast to a white woman because "the size of [her] lips [was] distracting to male execs", saying: "does she know that's racist? I'm Hispanic and black; you can't say that".
As she was getting older, she was featured in episodes of 8 Simple Rules and CSI: Miami. She also recorded music as a teenager, with her father sneaking her into his workplace, and worked with Al B. Sure! at the age of fourteen. By this point, she was working less frequently. In between auditions and roles, Rivera worked jobs as a telemarketer, a nanny, and a greeter at an Abercrombie & Fitch store. In 2006 and 2007, she took part in a production of Mark E. Swinton's play, U Don't Know Me: The Musical, both in Los Angeles and when the production was taken on national tour. She also auditioned for an unspecified season of American Idol during the San Francisco auditions, but was cut in the first round. In March 2008, Rivera began studying screenwriting at New York Film Academy, graduating the same year.
2009–2011: Breakthrough with Glee In 2009, Rivera was cast as Santana Lopez, a high school cheerleader, on Fox's musical comedy series Glee, about a high school glee club. She auditioned for the opportunity "to sing, dance and act all in the same show", and because she was a fan of co-creator Ryan Murphy's previous work on Nip/Tuck. She drew on her own high school experience of unpopularity to prepare for the role, as well as watching films including Mean Girls to "really get in the zone and feel like a bitchy sophomore". Rivera described her character Santana as "a bit of a bad girl" and "your typical high school cheerleader, for the most part", saying that she enjoyed playing Santana because she "always has these really witty one-liners she throws out there". The LA Times wrote that Rivera was "woefully underused for much of Glee first season", though Santana played a more prominent part in the last nine episodes of it; Rivera said at the time that "Santana's been wreaking havoc with people's boyfriends and people's babies and teachers – she's the high school terror, and she's going to continue to be the villain". Rivera continued as a nanny while working on the first three episodes of Glee, not knowing if they would bring her back; Murphy was so impressed by her that he "convinced the network" to contract her at this point.
After having her screen time and musical involvement increased in the second half of the first season, Rivera was promoted to series regular as of the beginning of the second season, something said to be earned because her "magnetism on screen was undeniable". She was given her first solo in the fifth episode of season two, "The Rocky Horror Glee Show", and performed several others as the season progressed. During the second season, Rivera's role in the show was radically changed when it was revealed that her character was a lesbian. Rivera portrayed Santana struggling to come to terms with her sexuality, with her love for her best friend, and with her inability to come out of the closet. Rivera spoke about the development of this aspect of her character, saying that it was first thought up by the writers as a "funny little thing" for a quick punchline; the actress pushed for the sexuality and relationship to be taken seriously. She received favorable reviews for her performance and is celebrated for the representation that Santana and her portrayal of the character provide; one feature on Rivera's legacy said that "in a landscape starved of representation, Santana was an oasis. A bold, well-rounded, hilarious woman of colour who was openly and unapologetically gay". In 2013, Santana's second season coming-out scene was described as "one of the hallmarks of the entire series". In relation to the show, Rivera was a guest mentor on The Glee Project's second season episode "Sexuality", and in January 2011, she appeared in a Funny or Die parody of "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang", called "Nuthin' But a Glee Thang", which had been co-written by her Glee co-star Heather Morris. Rivera and Morris played girlfriends and ultimately wives on the show; Rivera said that the pair were comfortable filming intimate scenes, but that these became awkward because "all the guys wanted to visit the set". They remained close friends until Rivera's death.