Lea Michele Pays Tribute To Cory Monteith On The 10-Year Anniversary Of His Death

A decade after his death, Cory Monteith’s loss is still felt among his fans and Glee family. On July 13, Lea Michele paid tribute to her late boyfriend and Glee co-star to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing. Taking to Instagram, the Funny Girl star shared a black-and-white portrait of her cuddling up against Monteith that was seemingly taken in a photo booth.

“Hey you,” she began her caption, nodding to a song on her sophomore album Places that she wrote from the perspective of speaking to the actor after he passed. “10 years. It feels like only yesterday that you were here and yet a million years ago all at the same time. I hold all of our memories in my heart where they will stay safe and never forgotten. We miss you every day and will never forget the light you brought to us all. I miss you big guy.”

Michele concluded her note by saying how she hoped that Monteith “found Taylor up there and are playing the drums together.” She’s seemingly referring to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died in March 2022 while on tour in South America. Monteith died in July 2013 in his home country of Canada of a drug overdose.

The singer has continued to pay tribute to her late boyfriend every year since his death and has found new ways to honor his memory. In 2016, she shared that she got a tattoo of his character’s football jersey number on Instagram. “For my Quarterback … #5,” she wrote. Glee’s Season 5 episode paying tribute to Monteith was also called “The Quarterback.” Three years later, she revealed another tattoo commemorating Monteith on the back of her upper thigh, which simply reads “Finn.”

Eagle-eyed fans have also noticed that Michele has two tattoos on the side of her stomach that represent the last words she and Monteith spoke to each other, “I love you more” and “if you say so.” The final song on her debut album Louder, “If You Say So,” was written about their final conversation. “I spoke to a woman who lost her son, and she mentioned how grateful she was that the last words she said to her son before he died were, ‘I love you,’” she told Seventeen in 2014. “Mine were that as well.”