Naya Rivera noticed her “Glee” co-star Heather Morris’ eating habits had changed, and confronted her directly, the dancer revealed.
“I had developed an eating disorder. I stopped getting my period. I was so in my head about food and what it was doing for me,” Morris recalled on Thursday’s episode of the “And That’s What You REALLY Missed” podcast.
The 35-year-old actress said she would often not eat in front of her co-stars, which prompted Rivera to follow her into a dressing room and call her out.
“I can’t remember exactly what she was saying, but she was approaching me about my eating disorder because I know she herself had eating disorders,” Morris said. “And she was very open about it in her book. So she, of course, was the first to speak up about it.”
Morris admitted that she blew off the conversation, which took place while the “Glee” cast was on tour, telling Rivera was she was OK and didn’t need help.
Morris said she and Rivera never spoke about her eating disorder again.
“That’s who she was. She was just always ready to talk about it,” Morris explained. “We’re all like that now. It just takes that time and place in your life where you’re like, ‘Life’s too short.'”
The late “Step Up” actress revealed in her 2016 memoir, “Sorry Not Sorry,” that she battled anorexia as a teenager.
“I just avoided food at all costs. If my mom had packed a lunch for me, I’d either trash it or find some excuse to give it away,” she wrote in the book.
Rivera — who played Morris’ love interest on “Glee” — tragically died in July 2020 after accidentally drowning while on a boating trip with son Josey, whom she shared with ex-husband Ryan Dorsey. She was 33 years old.
After Rivera’s untimely death, Morris paid tribute to her former co-star on social media, calling the late actress one of her “closest friends.”
FOX Image Collection via Getty I
FOX Image Collection via Getty I
“You constantly taught me lessons about grief, about beauty and poise, about being strong, resilient and about not giving a f–k (but still somehow respectful),” she wrote on Instagram a week after Rivera’s death.
Morris continued, “Yet, the utmost important lesson I learned most of all from you was being a consistent and loving friend. You were the first to check in, the first to ask questions, the first to listen .. you cherished our friendship and I never took that for granted.”
