Glee star Naya Rivera had an abortion as a young actress

24 Aug 2016 |

Naya Rivera had an abortion in 2010 during a day off from filming her hit show Glee.The 29-year-old star has opened up about the difficult time in her upcoming memoir Sorry Not Sorry, with excerpts of the tome published in People magazine. Just weeks after breaking up with actor Ryan Dorsey in late 2010 to concentrate on her career, Naya discovered she was pregnant with his child. Making the decision not to tell Ryan, Naya opted to terminate the pregnancy on a day off from shooting an episode of musical series Glee, in which she played Santana Lopez.

"It was very scary to open up about everything," Naya told People of revealing the abortion. "It's not something a lot of people talk about, but I think they should. I know some people might read it and say, 'What the hell?' But I hope someone out there gets something out of it." Naya is now happily married to Ryan, with whom she has an 11-month-old son Josey. The actress' book also chronicles Naya's battle with eating disorder anorexia, which began when she was a teenager as her parents' relationship broke down at the same time as her career as an actress was struggling.

"By the time I was a sophomore, I started feeling that what had begun as a game had maybe gone too far. I just avoided food at all costs," Naya writes in the book. "If my mom had packed a lunch for me, I'd either trash it or find some excuse to give it away."While Naya knew she had issues with food growing up, she was unaware of the extent of the eating disorder until she started writing about it for Sorry Not Sorry. "I was so young and it just seemed to be the norm. Everyone was going through similar stuff," she added to People. "I had no way of knowing if I was going through it worse. I was juggling my feelings and it makes me sad that there are girls still going through that 15 years after I went through it."