Lea Michele Opens Up About Cory Monteith's Passing In Touching Interview

Five months after the untimely death of actor Cory Monteith, his Glee co-star and girlfriend both on and off screen Lea Michele has finally opened up about the passing and explained how she has coped with her grief. Appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show this week, the actress told Ellen that she has been slowly moving on from the passing, as that is what Cory would have wanted her to do.

Lea and Cory were very much in love before his passing

The 27-year-old actress went on to explain how, even to this day, she is trying to cope with the loss and described the immense heartache and confusion she felt and still feels now. In spite of her grief, Michele told Ellen that she knew she couldn't dwell on Monteith's passing because it would bring her too far down. Instead she has focused all her energy on her career as she tries to do her best for Cory, to do his memory right.

"I'm still trying to figure out all of this. It's been only a few months, but my mom has experienced a lot of loss in her life and she told me at one point she said there is an empowerment that comes with grief, at some point you find it," Lea said as she opened up to the host. "It's very hard but you will find it and I think at a certain point you can choose to sort of fall from this or you can choose to rise. And that's what I'm just trying to do my best for him because I know that that's what he would have wanted and to just do my best and to you know, hopefully make something positive for where I go in the rest of my life."

Michele has been trying not to dwell on Cory as she throws herself into her work

The Glee actress and Ellen then went on to recall the time Monteith appeared on the comic's chatshow, where he revealed his relationship with Michele for the first time. Michele went on to describe the moment he came home from that interview and told her how proud he was to have told the world they were a couple as one of her fondest memories.

Cory died in the hotel room he was staying at in Vancouver on 13 July. A post-mortem examination showed that he had died after ingesting a toxic combination of heroin and alcohol.

Michele explained how she wants to do what Cory would have wanted by moving on