Naya Rivera’s Son Josey Tried to Throw Her a Rope the Day She Drowned. His Dad Ryan Dorsey Reveals What Stopped Him

Naya Rivera’s ex Ryan Dorsey has broken his silence about her death in a new interview — five years after her tragic drowning.

In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, the actor, 41, says in his first sit-down interview since Rivera’s death that their son Josey, now 9, still holds guilt for not being able to save his mom as he watched her drown while they were swimming off a rental boat in Lake Piru in Ventura County, Calif.

“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 says. “I keep reassuring him, ‘Buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.'”

Dorsey says Josey, who was only 4 at the time, also remembers that it was windy that day, and he describes being worried about getting into the water, but his mom told him, “Don’t be silly!”

After some time swimming, Rivera noticed the boat — which hadn’t been equipped with an anchor or flotation devices, points that Dorsey included in the wrongful-death lawsuit he filed on behalf of Josey against Ventura County that was settled in 2022 — was drifting.

She told Josey to swim back, and he remembers grabbing “the tanks” and pulling himself “around the boat,” says Dorsey. (The incident report said Rivera drowned after exhausting herself getting Josey back on the boat.)

“He said that the last thing she said was his name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore,” Dorsey says. “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”

Dorsey found out that Rivera was missing from a call from her mom Yolanda’s husband. At the time, he was in a Ralph’s supermarket in Big Bear Lake, Calif., getting food for a friend’s birthday barbecue.

“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” Dorsey recalls. “I feared the worst.”

He immediately got into his car and sped the 145 miles to Lake Piru.

“I drove 100-and-­something the whole way with my four-way hazards on, chain-smoking cigarettes — and I don’t even smoke, really — and just crying,” he says. “I just wanted to get to Josey.”

Josey had been found asleep and alone on an adrift pontoon boat that Rivera had rented three hours earlier that day.

“If we’d have lost both Naya and Josey, I don’t know how I would continue on with my life,” Dorsey says. “I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been good.”

After five days of searching, Rivera’s body was found on July 13, in a remote part of the lake.

“When it happened, I just found myself shaking my head, like, ‘I can’t believe she’s gone,'” Dorsey says. “It’s still so surreal every day.”

As he and Josey navigate life without Rivera, Dorsey — who moved from L.A. to his home state of West Virginia with his son two years ago — admits the holidays are still especially tough.

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

“It’s hard trying to explain things that you can’t really make sense of no matter what age you are,” he continues. “I’m not a big believer in everything happens for a reason because I can’t ever think of a reason why he doesn’t have his mom.”

While they certainly still have their hard moments, Dorsey says Josey is “such a happy kid.”

“He wakes up happy, all energy,” he says. “I’m trying to be the best parent that I can be and raise a good little man. He gives me a reason to keep going with my life.”

via: People

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