Naya Rivera, 33, who starred in six seasons of Fox’s “Glee” as the sharp-witted cheerleader Santana Lopez, was missing on Wednesday night as a search team scoured Lake Piru in California, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said that it was searching for a “possible drowning victim” in the lake. The search was suspended late Wednesday and will be resumed Thursday morning.
A sheriff’s office spokesman, Eric Buschow, said that Ms. Rivera had rented a boat with her 4-year-old son on Wednesday afternoon. Another boater found the son alone on the boat at 4 p.m., he said.
The boy was safe on Wednesday night, he said. Ms. Rivera’s son said the pair went swimming but his mother did not get back on the boat, Dean Worthy, another spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said in a telephone interview. Ms. Rivera’s son had been found wearing a life vest, he added, but the sheriff’s office did not believe Ms. Rivera had been wearing one, he said, as a second life vest was found inside the boat.
Ms. Rivera began acting as a 4-year-old on the CBS sitcom “The Royal Family” and made guest appearances on a number of shows, including “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Family Matters” and “Baywatch.”
She broke through to wider stardom on “Glee,” with her role growing throughout the first season before she was made a series regular in the second season.
Ms. Rivera married the actor Ryan Dorsey in 2014 and gave birth to their son, Josey Hollis, in 2015. The couple split in 2018.
Her most recent post on Twitter was a photo of herself and her son.
The cast of “Glee” has dealt with its share of heartbreak. Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, was found dead in a hotel room in 2013 from a drug overdose when he was 31. Mark Salling, who played Noah Puckerman, was 35 when he died in an apparent suicide in 2018, weeks after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of being in possession of child pornography.
Alex Marshall contributed reporting.
