Gloria Estefan hopes Naya Rivera is remembered as a "glorious triple threat".
The 62-year-old singer/songwriter played the mother of late actress Naya, 33 in ‘Glee’ and said she "prayed a lot" when she heard that Naya had gone missing on Lake Piru in California last month and her son Josey, four, had been found alone on a boat.
Speaking to Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM radio show, she said: "When I heard what had happened and I saw that the baby had been on board, even though I was praying beyond words that maybe she’d been caught up in a riptide and somehow ending up landing in some other part around that lake…deep down inside as a mom you know that she would never have left that baby alone on the boat. So something terrible must have happened.
"I prayed a lot. But I hope she’s remembered as a wonderful triple threat. She really was one of our young acting talents and dancing and singing, it’s just such a shame."
Gloria also spoke about her rapport with Naya – whose death was ruled an accidental drowning – and revealed they had planned to record music together before she fell pregnant with Josey.
She said: "When I got the opportunity and was invited to be a part of it, I was thrilled beyond words. When I was there, they were at their peak of fame. So, a lot of the kids, you know, were great, a lot of them weren’t handling fame that well and didn’t have the kind of rapport that Naya had.
"Naya was really down to earth and warm and [it] was a joy to play her mom. She had really amazing chops.
"We were gonna do that music, were working on it, and then she got pregnant. She married and got pregnant, so she got sidetracked in that respect at that moment."