Lea Michele: It Was ‘Really Hard’ To Have People Watching Me Grieve Cory Monteith

Grieving the loss of a loved one is difficult enough without having the experience captured under the spotlight of fame, says Lea Michele.

The “Glee” star, 27, whose boyfriend/co-star Cory Monteith passed away in July, opened up about her mourning process in a new interview with Ellen DeGeneres.

“It’s just really hard,” Lea said, in an interview which will air on “The Ellen DeGeneres” show on Thursday. “There’s so many different emotions and to kind of have people watching every step of the way.”

The actress headed to “Glee” co-star Kate Hudson’s house immediately after Cory’s death to escape paparazzi camped out at her own house.

“To have that time at [Kate’s] home to just really be in private with this for a moment before getting back to work and before going home — I’m just so thankful to her,” she said. “She was so wonderful to basically give me her home to myself and my family. It was so helpful to just, basically, have a safe place to process, and just have a minute to just breathe before getting back to my house with just has a lot of memories and stuff.”

The actress, whose first solo album, “Louder,” will be released in February, took some heat from some fans for returning to work just one month after Cory’s death.

“What people also don’t understand is that going to work is no harder than being at home and being in the house and opening up a closet and seeing a pair of shoes,” she said. “There’s this grief [that] goes with you every day, whatever you’re doing. When there’s great moments, hard moments.

“So I’d rather, for me, be at work with the people who I love that are going through [it too],” she continued. “It obviously has its own triggers, but at the end of the day I feel so safe there. And like I said, they’re my family.”

— Erin O’Sullivan

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