Cory Monteith may be gone, but he is far from forgotten.
July 13 is a day which Glee fans mourn each year as it marks the anniversary of Monteith’s death. The Canadian star passed away in 2013 from an accidental overdose. At the time of his death, the 31-year-old actor was in a relationship with his co-star, Lea Michele.
The pair had played love interests on screen since Glee began in 2008, but it was only in 2012 that life imitated art.
On the 9th anniversary of the actor’s passing, Michele paid tribute to him via her Instagram Story. Sharing a photo of the lovebirds from their time on the FOX show, she captioned it with a red heart emoji.
The 35-year-old actress has previously spoken fondly of her late boyfriend, saying, “There was no greater man than Cory, so for the time we spent together I consider myself very lucky.“
The star of Funny Girl has also been open and honest about the grieving process that she endured. “There is an empowerment that comes with grief — at some point you find it,” she told Ellen DeGeneres in 2013. “It’s very hard but you will find it, and I think at a certain point you can choose to sort of fall from this or you can choose to rise. That’s what I’m just trying to do my best for him, because I known that that’s what he would have wanted.”
In 2016, Michele got the number five tattooed on her person in honor of Monteith. The number matched that of his Glee character’s football jersey.
