Glee creator Ryan Murphy shares Cory Monteith's tragic final words to him before he died.

Glee creator Ryan Murphy has opened up about coping with the death of the show’s lead male actor and close friend Cory Monteith.

Monteith, who played Finn in the hit TV show, died in July 2013 of a heroin overdose after struggling with addiction.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Murphy speaks about the last words the actor ever said to him, when Monteith came to visit the set of a film Murphy was working on.

“We hugged, and the last thing he said was ‘I love you, man, and thank you for helping me get better’,” Murphy said.

“And then the next thing I knew he was dead. It was like losing a child.”

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A photo posted by glee (@gleeonfox) on Jul 15, 2013 at 4:30pm PDT

The director said the 31-year-old’s death shook the cast and changed the show.

“What started off as being such a great celebration of love and acceptance ultimately became about darkness and death,” Murphy said.

The creator of American Horror Story also reflected on the period shortly after Glee premiered in 2009.

“It was the best time in my life and the worst time in my life,” Murphy said.

“There was a lot of infighting. There was a lot of people sleeping together and breaking up. It was good training for being a parent, I’ll tell you that much.”

Murphy said he also made a “mistake” by getting to personal with his cast.

“We loved it so much that we would all go out to dinner and we’d hang out and we were always together, so there was no delineation between who was the boss and who was the employee.”

“And we were all so close that finally when something would happen, it would be so personal to me that I would literally hit the roof.”