‘Glee’ Star Naya Rivera Charged with Domestic Battery for Attack on Husband

Naya Rivera, best known for playing Santana Lopez on FOX’s musical series Glee, was arrested and charged with domestic battery Saturday night, reported WSAZ.

According to the criminal complaint, officers were called to her home in Chesapeake, West Virginia, at around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night “for a domestic situation.”

There, deputies say they spoke with Rivera’s 34-year-old actor-husband, Ryan Dorsey, who claimed that his wife, 30, had “struck him in the head and the bottom lip while the two were taking their child for a walk down the street.” Officers further claim that Dorsey provided them with cellphone footage showing him being attacked by Rivera.

Rivera was booked and then arraigned in the early hours Sunday morning. She was released on a Personal Recognizance Bond, and picked up from the courthouse by her father-in-law. 

Local WSAZ reporter Jatara McGee caught footage from the arraignment, and posted it to her Twitter account. “After, I asked @NayaRivera if she wanted to say anything and she just put her head down,” McGee wrote. 

Rivera and Dorsey, a fellow actor who currently stars on the Showtime series Ray Donovan, began dating in 2010, just as her star was rising with Glee. In her bestselling memoir, Sorry Not Sorry, Rivera revealed that she became pregnant with Dorsey’s child soon thereafter, but said she chose to terminate the pregnancy in order to focus on her career. Then the two split. 

“It was very scary to open up about everything,” Rivera told People. “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.”

After breaking off her engagement to rapper Big Sean in 2014, Rivera and Dorsey wed just three months later, in July 2014. The couple welcomed a son, Josey, on Sept. 17, 2015, but by November 2016 Rivera had filed for divorce from Dorsey.

“After much consideration, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Our priority is and always will be our beautiful son that we share together. We will continue to be great co-parenting partners for him. We ask for respect and privacy for our family during this difficult time,” the pair said in a statement.

Last month, however, Rivera decided to call off the divorce and reunite with her estranged husband.

“She is back together with Ryan Dorsey,” a source told E! News. “They want to make it work for the sake of their son.”

After news of Rivera’s arrest broke, her ex-fiancé Big Sean tweeted a link to a popular meme of a black girl repeatedly exclaiming, “I told y’all n*ggas.”

Following the rapper’s split from Rivera in 2014, TMZ reported that “Big Sean broke off his engagement to Naya Rivera because he was scared off by her violent fits of anger and jealousy.”

The site added: “Our sources say Naya demanded to know where he was at all times and would threaten him by saying things like, ‘If you don’t listen to what I say, I’ll ruin your career.’ We’re told she was suspicious whenever Sean was with other women and would work herself up into jealous rages... once breaking an expensive lamp during a rampage in his home.”