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Five years after his death, Lea Michele has posted a touching tribute to her late boyfriend.

Content Warning: This post discusses addiction and may be disturbing for many readers.

Five years after Corey Monteith died, Lea Michele has posted a touching tribute to her late boyfriend on Twitter. “There are some who bring a light so great to the world, that even after they have gone, the light remains,” she wrote, attaching a photo of a sunset.

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The tweet has been liked over 40,000 times, and fans of the Glee star, who played Finn Hudson, have also posted tributes to the late actor on Twitter.

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In April this year, Lea Michele announced her engagement to her fiance Zandy Reich.

Cory Monteith was found dead at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in Vancouver, Canada, on the July 13, 2013 when he was just 31-years-old. The coroner’s report classified the death as accidental, and said it was caused by a lethal dose of heroin and alcohol.

The tragic irony was that his passing came just months after he played a tortured drug addiction in McCanick.

Josh Waller, the director of the film – which was in post-production at the time of Monteith’s death –  told ET Canada that the young actor took the role to try to achieve closure.

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“He said he wanted the role so badly because he had a very jaded past and he’d never been able to tap into that as an actor and kind of purge his system,” he said.

Australian actor Heath Ledger was also playing a “dark” part, The Joker in The Dark Knight, when he died in very similar circumstances in 2008.

Monteith had openly spoken about his struggle with drug addiction, telling Parade magazine in 2011 he would do “Anything and everything, as much as possible… I had a serious problem”.

When the actor was 19, his mother and his friends staged an intervention.

“That’s when I first went to rehab. I did the stint but then went back to doing exactly what I left off doing,” he said.

Monteith’s body was discovered after he failed to check out of his hotel room, where hotel staff found him unresponsive.

For more information on pharmaceutical misuse and treatments, please visit ScriptWise. There are also many resources on the Alcohol and Drug Foundation website.

If this story brought up any urgent issues for you, you can ring Family Drug Support on 1300 368 186, Beyond Blue on 1300 224 36, or Lifeline on 13 11 14.