Following the death of her son, Cory Monteith's mom has maintained an understandable silence.
The same could be said for his girlfriend and fellow Glee cast member, Lea Michele.
In fact, it was only Thursday — nearly three weeks after the 31-year-old actor was found dead of a drug and alcohol overdose in his hotel room at Vancouver's Fairmont Pacific Rim — that mother Ann McGregor broke her silence.
One tweet thanked her son's fans and well-wishers for their support. And two more, in quick succession, disavowed the man who identified himself as the star's cousin, Richard Monteith.
Haven't heard of him?
Well, you may not have been paying attention.
A day after the actor's death, Richard Monteith was featured in a tearful interview to Global News, urging fans not to "judge on what is gonna be coming out."
Richard spend much of the interview recounting his seemingly extensive life experiences with the man he considered a mentor.
“He told me no matter how long your tunnel is – just know there is always a light at the end of the tunnel," he said in the interview. "He was that light for me.”
Global billed the interview as an exclusive. But, it turns out, Cousin Richard has a lot to say on the sad subject.
Cory Monteith's cousin pays emotional tribute to the star, blares the headline at Hello Magazine.
Not long after that, he's telling New York Daily News "we were really close. We're first cousins, and he was like my mentor. ... He was always there."
And so too, it seems, is Cousin Richard today.
InTouch Weekly gets it own 'exclusive' with a story headlined, Cory Monteith’s Cousin: Cory’s Ashes Will Be Scattered In Cities He Loved.
The headlines and images rattle on and on: Cory Monteith's cousin this, Cory Monteith's cousin that.
In a Metro story last month, Richard Monteith talks about the good times he spent with Cory and his own dreams of following in his footsteps as an actor.
So it came as a bit of a surprise that when Cory Monteith's mom finally broke her silence, she spent two of her three tweets saying she didn't know the guy.
It hasn't been confirmed whether Richard Monteith is, in fact, the star's cousin. He may very well be. But clearly, the woman not identifying herself as his aunt isn't happy about how much time he has for the media.
And it's hard not to wonder if at least one of many comments on that Metro story are sadly accurate.
"He's no more a family spokesman for the Monteith family than I am," a reader posted. "He is trying to make a career out of this tragedy."
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