Lea Michele has spoken for the first time about the death of her boyfriend and “Glee” co-star Cory Monteith.
On the eve of the American premiere of the show’s tribute episode to his character Finn Hudson, Michele spoke to Australia’s TV Week about losing her loved one.
“I feel like, for me personally, I’ve lost two people: Cory and Finn,” she told the mag.
“We had a beautiful memorial for Cory in the auditorium and some of the cast members sang and people spoke about him. It only felt right that we would do the same thing for Finn, so I felt it was very therapeutic.”
Monteith tragically died in July after of an alcohol and drug overdose in his hotel room.
Michele said she had been constantly asked if she would quit the show.
“Everyone is asking: ‘Is it hard to do this? Is it hard to be back at work?’, but the truth is it’s no harder at work than it is in life so we might as well all be together as a family supporting each other to get through this together.”
During the interview, she also paid tribute to Monteith, saying there was “no greater man” than him.
“I really woke up every single day feeling like I was being in some sort of spell or something, that I was lucky enough to have him in my life. I feel like what happened with Cory (the cause of his death) was this big,” she says, holding her fingers together to reflect a minuscule amount, “in the scheme of who he was and his life.
“There was no greater man than Cory, so for the time we spent together I consider myself very lucky.”
This story originally appeared on News.com.au.