As the search for “Glee” star Naya Rivera reaches into its fifth day, her co-star Lea Michele, who has not yet spoken publicly about her disappearance, quietly deleted her Twitter account amid mounting and truly horrific bullying directed toward her.
While her Instagram account is still active — and she’s not turned off comments — the latest post there is her response to the bombshell allegations from May that she had bullied co-stars throughout her career.
In fact, it is a combination of that whole ugly situation and the social media fallout from Rivera’s disappearance that many fans think is at the root of the pregnant Michele suddenly deleting her Twitter feed altogether.
Certainly cancel culture has been coming for her for over a month now, and as the birth of her child looms, the 33-year-old might just be feeling overwhelmed by it all.
With every passing day since Rivera’s disappearance without a word from the de facto star of the show they starred in together for seven seasons, the attacks against Michele have only intensified.
Some people have been so awful as to either lay blame for Rivera’s disappearance on Michele, or suggest it should have been her. While plenty of others have piled on against these vicious attacks in her defense, they are representative of the depths of darkness Twitter is capable of.
Being the target of Twitter’s awful trolling can be too much for anyone, and considering Michele was already under fire for past allegations of bullying — including toward Rivera, who was blamed at the time — it’s at least somewhat understandable that she would be hesitant to say anything now that Rivera has gone missing and is presumed drowned, even if she wants to. 360aproko has reached out to Lea Michele’s representatives for comment about her decision to deactivate her account.
Authorities mounted search and rescue efforts after Rivera’s four-year-old son Josey Hollis Dorsey was found alone on a boat she had rented on Wednesday. According to her son, to the best of the police’s understanding, they were swimming together when Rivera went under and never came back up.
On Thursday, authorities said they had little hope that Rivera was still alive, considering this a search and recovery effort at this point. Nevertheless, on Sunday, 360aproko reports that in response to a Twitter furor that they search cabins to the north of the lake where she disappeared, they will be expanding their efforts to include them.
In the wake of Michele’s disappearance from that same platform, people have been coming out on all sides of the issues.
Plenty of them doubled down on attacks against Michele for all those stars who’ve come out and said they were victim to her bullying tactics — and even worse. But just as many others sent well-wishes and words of support for the beleaguered star.
Knowing that she has been on the receiving end of a lot of negativity, and allowing that perhaps she’s grown and changed, and acknowledging that she’s pregnant and has lost another co-star, they commiserate with her assumed struggles and feel they can understand why she may have felt the need to disconnect.
Michele was in a romantic relationship with “Glee” co-star Cory Monteith both on- and off-screen when he died of a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol in 2013. His death was worked into the storylines of the show.
Rivera is the third cast-member of the show to have died, presuming she is gone, following Monteith and Mark Salling, who committed suicide in 2018 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
Many fans believe that all of this has been weighing on Michele’s mind in recent weeks. Rather than cancel her, they would rather lift her up and show her love and support despite what may have happened in the past.
Below is a cross-section of some of the support and speculations after Michele’s Twitter account vanished. We’ll not be posting any of the horrid and offensive attacks against her here, but you can still get a sense of just how awful some people have in the reactions:
