Naya Rivera Will Return To ‘Glee’ But Not As A Series Regular

For those Glee fans that were worried actress Naya Rivera was getting the boot when she was absent for the last few episodes of the season, your prayers have been answered. Creator Ryan Murphy kept his word when he said Naya wasn’t fired from the show. In fact, the actress will be returning for the Fox show’s final season. However, there’s a catch and it all has to do with Rivera’s screen time.

Naya Rivera, who plays the catty cheerleader turned yeast infection spokesperson Santana, will not be billed as a series regular. Rivera got demoted to recurring guest star, which means that she won’t be heavily featured on the series. According to Michael Ausiello of TVLine, this was Rivera’s choice and wasn’t made by the producers, who she was rumored to be fighting with all last season in addition to having a contentious relationship with star Lea Michele.

Besides all of the rumors it actually makes sense that it was Rivera’s decision to down scale herself on Glee. Over the years she’s been focusing on getting her own original music out there, and apparently she’s also focusing on other acting projects too. Naya isn’t the only cast member to be demoted to a recurring role. Regulars like Amber Riley and Mark Salling have also popped in and out of the show, and are still very effective in their own story lines even if they aren’t featured as heavily.

When we last left the cast it looked like most of them were leaving the New York arc to explore other avenues on the show. While Ryan Murphy hasn’t officially confirmed that this last season will be a return to its original setting at McKinley High School in the fictional Lima, Ohio, he did tell Ausiello that he is very invigorated by the final season.

“We’re working on the last season now, and it really feels like it’s getting back to its roots, which I love. I’m sort of reinvigorated about it. It’s getting back to what I was initially interested in with the show, which was arts in school. The last season is really about the importance of arts education in our high schools… I think people will like it.”

It hasn’t been officially announced yet but it looks like Fox will give Glee an abbreviated final season so it’s not taking much of the schedule up, and so the writers can give the show a proper send off.

[Image via 20th Century Fox]