Lea Michele Remembers Cory Monteith 10 Years After His Death
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A decade after Cory Monteith was found dead in his Vancouver hotel room, his then-girlfriend, Lea Michele, is remembering him with a heartfelt message directed at the late Glee star.
His fellow co-star took to Instagram with the tribute, posting a blurry black and white photo—possibly a shot of a Polaroid—in which Monteith smiled softly at the camera as Michele snuggled up to his side, eyes closed as her cheek pressed lovingly to his and her hand rested lightly on his opposite shoulder.
"Hey you," she wrote alongside the bittersweet snap. "10 years. It feels like only yesterday that you were here and yet a million years ago all at the same time."
She continued, "I hold all of our memories in my heart where they will stay safe and never forgotten. We miss you every day and will never forget the light you to [sic] brought to us all. I miss you big guy. I hope you found Taylor up there and are playing the drums together. 🤍."
Monteith was just 31 when he died of an overdose of a combination of heroin and alcohol on July 13, 2013. Two years before his death, he opened up about his past substance abuse in an interview with Parade, discussing his multiple stints in rehab and what he considered the turning point in his addiction: getting caught stealing money from a family member.
"I really got to know myself through a lot of that self-destruction," he said at the time, feeling so confident in his sobriety, he considered himself "kind of Hollywood-proof."
He continued, "I had to go very deep into myself and rebuild a lot of what I had taken apart, and that process is strengthening, that process is grounding. That doesn’t go away. That's the foundation this is all built on now, and I feel stable."
Of the "trap" of using drugs, he added, "Because when you choose that lifestyle, you unchoose everything else. You don't realize you're doing it, but you're distancing yourself from the rest of the world. You're putting up walls and burning down bridges and alienating yourself from everybody. It's very lonely."
Still, he said he couldn't help but feel "like a bit of a fraud sometimes." He continued, "At the end of the day, who everybody meets in the public eye, the public image, and myself are two different people in a way."
Today, Michele, 36, is married to Zandy Reich, and the two share 2-year-old son Ever Leo.
