Naya Rivera’s father, George Rivera, is sharing details of the heartbreaking final phone call he had with his daughter shortly before she died of an accidental drowning last July.
In an new exclusive interview with People, the 64-year-old says Naya FaceTimed him on that fateful July 8 afternoon while out on a rented boat in California’s Lake Piru with her four-year-old son Josey.
“She would always bounce stuff off me,” he tells the mag. “And she wanted to go swimming with Josey out in the middle of the lake.”
But when she informed him the boat did not have an anchor, he advised her against it.
“I could see that the wind was blowing and my stomach was just cringing,” he says. “I kept telling her, ‘Don’t get out of the boat! Don’t get out of the boat! It will drift away when you’re in the water.'”
Their call cut out minutes later and George recalls, “I had this bad feeling that was just killing me.”
Naya, 33, drowned after struggling to get Josey back into the boat after the two went swimming, according to the Ventura County Medical Examiner. Her body was recovered five days later.
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