Here are the juiciest revelations from Sorry Not Sorry:
1. Her rivalry with Michele was real—but a tad overblown.
«One of the Glee writers once said that Lea and I were like two sides of the same battery and that about sums us up. We are both strong willed and competitive—not just with each other but with everyone—and that’s not a good mixture,» writes Rivera, whose character, Santana, was often at odds with Michele’s character, Rachel. «As the show progressed, though, that friendship started to break down, especially as Santana moved from a background character to one with bigger plot lines and more screen time. I think Rachel—erm, I mean Lea—didn’t like sharing the spotlight.»
«On top of that, she had a hard time separating work from our outside friendship, whereas it was a lot easier for me,» she adds. «I’m not offended when people offer feedback or criticism, and if things get heated on set, I try to keep perspective. We’re all stressed, yes, but we’re all working toward the same goal, so laugh it off and keep it movin’. Lea was a lot more sensitive, though, and it seemed like she blamed me for anything and everything that went wrong.»
«If I’d complained about anyone or anything, she’d assumed I was bitching about her. Soon, she started to ignore me, and eventually it got to the point where she didn’t say a word to me for all of Season 6,» Rivera writes. «Lea and I definitely weren’t the best of friends, and I doubt we’ll ever sit on her couch and eat kale together again, but the rumors of our ‘feud’ were blown out of proportion.»
Monteith had been sober for years, so when the actor had a cocktail at a cast party several years ago, his co-stars were taken aback. «He noticed that we noticed,» Rivera writes. «He explained that he wanted to be able to drink in moderation, that he could do it and be just like everybody else. He seemed calm and confident about it, so we all just accepted it. To be honest, I don’t think many of us really understood how addiction worked, nor did we fully realize the extent of his former addiction.»
Rivera learned Monteith had died of combined drug intoxication in 2013 while she was in London with her then-boyfriend, Big Sean. «I doubt I’m alone in feeling a lot of regret about his death. Since he died, a lot of us have spent time wondering and talking about what would have happened if someone had stepped in or confronted him about what was going on. Or what if he’d been trying to talk to someone about what was going on and just thought no one cared? Like, maybe that one time when it was just the two of us walking out to our cars, maybe if I would have just walked a little bit slower and hadn’t been in such a hurry to get home, maybe he would have seen it as an opportunity to bring something up,» the actress writes. «You can drive yourself crazy like that, because no number of ifs will ever make anything different.»
The co-stars broke up in 2010 but continued to work together for several seasons. According to Rivera, Salling’s publicist thought she was bad for his image. «When Mark dumped me, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but can you imagine if that didn’t happen? And I was laying there in bed when the battering ram came through the door?I think everyone should have that one relationship where you look back and ask yourself, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ You’ll learn something and you won’t regret it,» she writes. «Unless, of course, that relationship was with someone who had a sizable stash of child porn on his computer. Then, by all means, regret everything.»
4. She found Big Sean at home with Grande—before they broke up.
«We’d been fighting for five straight days while he was traveling, and then on the one day that he was back in L.A., he said he didn’t want to see me,» Rivera writes of her ex-fiancé. Because she had a key to his house, she let herself in and stumbled upon the pop princess. «Guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music?» she asks. «It rhymes with ‘Smariana Schmande.'»
The rapper abruptly broke off his engagement to Rivera in 2014. «I learned that I was no longer getting married from the Internet, and at the same time as the rest of the world,» she writes. «Not only were we no longer getting married, but apparently we weren’t even together anymore.»
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