Lea Michele feels "very lucky" to have dated Cory Monteith.
The 'Glee' star has opened up about her heartbreak following the 31-year-old actor's tragic death in July, and admits filming a tribute episode to Cory and his character Finn Hudson, that will air in the U.S. tonight (10.10.13), was "very therapeutic" for her.
The 27-year-old actress told Australia's TV Week magazine: "I haven't seen it yet, but we did it because it was something we all needed to do together.
"I feel like, for me personally, I've lost two people: Cory and Finn. We had a beautiful memorial for Cory in the auditorium, and some of the cast members sang and people spoke about him. It only felt right that we would do the same thing for Finn, so I felt it was very therapeutic."
Lea wasn't worried about returning to the show after its summer hiatus without Cory, whom she had been dating for one year when he was found dead from a heroin and alcohol overdose in Vancouver, Canada,
She said: "Everyone is asking: 'Is it hard to do this? Is it hard to be back at work?' But the truth is, it's no harder at work than it is in life, so we might as well all be together as a family supporting each other to get through this together."
The brunette beauty tries to focus on happy memories of her late boyfriend.
She said: "One day I came home and Cory was there with this plaque from the set that we always had in the glee club. And I said, 'What's this doing here?' And he said, 'I took it!' He said, 'This summer we are going to take it all over everywhere we go and take pictures of us with this plaque!' And that's what we did!"
She added: "I really woke up every single day feeling like I was...in some sort of spell or something, that I was lucky enough to have him in my life. I feel like what happened with Cory['s death] was [so small] in the scheme of who he was and his life. There was no greater man than Cory, so for the time we spent together, I consider myself very lucky."
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