‘Glee’ Alums Help Complete Late Actress Naya Rivera’s ‘Pray for the Broken’ Song 3 Years After Her Death – Gudstory

glee Alumni came together to celebrate the late Naya Rivera and help her complete the song she recorded more than a decade ago.

Rivera, who died of accidental drowning in 2020 at the age of 33, first recorded “Prayer for the Broken” in 2012. The song never ended, but the former glee Stars Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, amber riley, heather morris, vanessa lenzis And Ashley Fink Helped finish the track with background vocals. “Prayer for the Broken,” written by Lindy Robbins And isaac hassanNow available to purchase and stream with proceeds benefiting Alexandria House.

glee Every Christmas since Rivera’s death the family has honored his legacy with an event they call the annual Snickersmas charity fundraiser, named for Rivera’s famous holiday parties. Every December, East glee The stars came together for an event to raise funds for Alexandria House. Rivera was a vocal supporter of the organization, which provides housing for women and children.

The annual Snickmas event has raised nearly $250,000 for Alexandra House since its inception, McHale and Ushkowitz reported on the Friday, Dec. 1 episode of iHeartMedia’s “And That’s What You Really Missed” podcast.

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Naya Rivera made her name playing Santana Lopez on Glee, but her acting career started long before that. The Santa Clarita, California native appeared in Kmart commercials as an infant and got her first TV role at the age of 4 when she joined the cast of The Royal Family. […]

“Out Now is an unreleased song that Naya recorded in 2012 from some of her solo music,” said Ushkowitz, 37. “Upon the amazingly gracious approval of the writers of this song and Naya’s mother Yolanda, we are releasing it for you all to hear Naya’s incredible voices and amazing talents.”

McHale, 35, said he had been sitting on an unfinished version of the track for quite some time. “Just being able to hear Naya’s voice is kind of what started this whole thing,” he said. “I got this demo from Naya in 2012 and I remember when she played it for me… Obviously Naya could sing. His voice could do anything. It can touch you emotionally, it can make you want to dance, it can do all those things. And it was another one of those layers of ‘Oh, wow.’ here you are out glee I am doing this work.

Ultimately, the song was never released. McHale continued, “Then life happens where we all recorded music, nothing came out of it.” “But I’ve always heard this song. … When she passed, the song was such a source – when I could finally hear it, it took a minute – but it provided me such a source of comfort and just being like, ‘Thank God I have this. . Like, thank God we have all these episodes and glee His songs and all the other work he has put out glee, Just to see her talent, to see her face and beauty, intelligence and charm, all of it. Whatever we have from Naya is limited now.

With this in mind, McHale said that Naya’s friends and family wanted to pick up more of the work she left. He argued, “If it matters so much to us, there’s no way it shouldn’t matter so much to other people.”

Connected: ‘Glee’ Cast: Where Are They Now?

You’ll never look at mud the same again! Glee introduced the world to quite a talented group of actors. The musical comedy-drama debuted in 2009 on Fox. It was Ryan Murphy’s third series, following the teen drama Popular and the dark medical drama Nip/Tuck. The series focused on William McKinley High School’s glee club, New Directions. […]

Last year, McHale exclusively told us weekly Rivera’s death brings healing to survivors glee cast members. (The musical comedy aired on Fox from 2009 to 2015.)

“Everyone was very raw emotionally and just kind of saying, ‘How is this happening? Why is this happening?’ Let’s talk about it,'” McHale said. We In October 2022. “Let’s talk about everything. …It was really nice to be able to find a space for everyone to feel comfortable and open and trusting to do that.”

,[Cory] “It also brought us along… but we were still doing the show,” Ushkowitz said. “There was too much to lose. You know, jobs were at stake. There was just a lot. As Kevin said, after Naya passed away, it felt like we had a lot of space away from the show and a lot of time to process, and a lot of people had time to really sit with their feelings. And I think it was really good for us too because we had time to think about it.