Heather Morris is recalling a private backstage moment she shared with late co-star Naya Rivera.
The Glee alum said Rivera—who died from an accidental drowning in 2020 at age 33—reached out to her when she noticed Morris avoiding food while they were on the Glee Live! In Concert! tour in 2010. Morris said that, at the time, she was "in a really bad place."
"When we started the tour, I had developed an eating disorder," Morris told former co-stars Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz on the And That's What You REALLY Missed podcast Nov. 30. "I stopped getting my period. I was so in my head about food and what it was doing for me and, obviously, this is just a manifestation of what my body was really going through in my mind. But I just was unhealthy. I looked at all food as bad."
Morris said there was one moment in particular during the tour that prompted their late co-star to check in on her, which she stated came from Rivera's own struggles with anorexia which she detailed in her 2016 memoir Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes and Growing Up.
"I just had walked into the food hall with everybody, looked at the food as I did every single time, and I was like, 'I just don't think I want that today,' and starred at it like I did every single time—I'm sure everybody was noticing—and I went back in the dressing room," Morris shared. "Naya walked in, and 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, and she was very open about it in her book."
She said Rivera's candidness to speak about the subject struck a chord with her, even if she was hesitant to open up about it back then.
"She, of course, was the first to speak up about it and just say, 'I don't know what's going on with you, but I feel like something is happening' and just was trying to be there in a way, and I just completely blew it off," The Masked Dancer alum said. "Like, ‘No I'm fine, of course I'm fine.' So, there was nothing else after that. There was nothing to be spoken about because she probably got the hint: Like, 'oh, OK. Well if she doesn't want to talk about it, she's not ready for this conversation.' And that's who she was, she was just always ready to talk about it."
Reflecting on the experience, Morris said she and fellow Glee alum have more candidly embraced conversations on their wellbeing since then.
"We're all like that now," Morris said. "It just takes that time and place in your life for you to realize, life's too short."