Naya Rivera’s ex Ryan Dorsey shares update on their son

(CNN) — This summer will mark five years since “Glee” star Naya Rivera drowned while boating with her young son, Josey.

The boy’s father and Rivera’s ex-husband, Ryan Dorsey, has shared new details about how they have coped with the tragedy and the pain their son lives with.

“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,” Dorsey told People. “I keep reassuring him, ‘Buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.’ That obviously still sticks out in his head because he feels like he could have saved her.”

Rivera was the subject of a days-long search in July 2020, when she disappeared from Lake Piru in Ventura County, California, while boating with her then four-year-old son.

Josey was discovered sleeping alone on the boat that Rivera had rented for them, which prompted a search that ended in the discovery of her body. She was 33.

Dorsey, whose marriage had ended with Rivera prior to her death but with whom he was successfully co-parenting, shared his theory about how she may have drowned.

“I think she just got caught up in a brush — that or a weird undercurrent from the dam,” he said. “It was just a freak occurrence.”

Dorsey told the publication he lost 40 lbs in the immediate loss due to grief over Rivera and said he “still can’t look at pictures of her.”

Dorsey said he traveled to his home state of West Virginia with Josey to protect him from media coverage after Rivera’s death. When they returned to Los Angeles, Rivera’s sister, Nickayla, moved in with them for a year to help care for her nephew.

“She was such a big help,” Dorsey said. “I had to go to Vancouver for five months and Josey came the last month to stay with me, but during the time I was gone she held it down and kept that consistency. It was very surreal sometimes because the way she would say things to Josey would sound like his mom.”

Dorsey is now balancing being a working father to 9-year-old son, who sometimes has questions he cannot answer.

“We made this book of memories for Josey that sits by his bed, and during the holidays he was crying looking at it,” Dorsey said. “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.’”

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