Glee's Jane Lynch Pays Tribute To 'Beautiful Soul' Cory Monteith At Emmy Awards

Glee star Jane Lynch gave a touching tribute at Sunday night's Emmy Awards to late co-star Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental overdose in July

Glee star Jane Lynch gave a touching tribute at Sunday night's Emmy Awards to late co-star Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental overdose in July. The 65th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards turned emotional when Glee's Jane Lynch - aka the menacing Sue Sylvester - took to the stage to honour the late actor Cory Monteith, who died tragically over the summer at the age of 31.

Lynch spoke of TV shows becoming like families, referring to Cory's passing as 'a painful death in our family.'

'I'm here to say that all that warmth and that charm, that open-hearted quality that we loved in Cory was no act.

'Cory was a beautiful soul. He was not perfect,' Lynch said of her Glee co-star, referring to his untimely death as the 'rapacious, senseless destruction that is brought on by addiction.'

Jane Lynch's speech came after controversy had sprung up when it was annouced that Monteith (along with other stars including James Gandolfini, comedian Jonathan Winters, Jean Stapleton and Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg) would receive a special tribute at the awards ceremony, instead of simply being included in the usual In Memoriam segment honouring all industry members who passed away in the last year.

'To a generation that loved Cory so, please know that this gifted and wonderful young man was worthy of your love.

'And if you were lucky enough to know Cory as we did and witnessed firsthand Cory's goofy, breezy sense of humour, his natural instinct for inclusiveness and his unbridled sense of generosity, day in and day out, I promise, you would have loved him even more,' Lynch concluded.

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