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Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy reflected in a candid new interview on his experience filming the Fox musical phenomenon, and how Cory Monteith’s death deeply and personally affected him.

“It was the best time in my life and the worst time in my life,” Murphy, 50, told Entertainment Weekly of working on the Emmy-winning series “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.”

The cast — which included Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Dianna Agron, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris and many more young stars — were like a family to Murphy. “But I also made a mistake: We all got too personal,” he said. “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.”

While spending so much time together, Murphy discovered that Monteith was struggling with addiction and helped get him into rehab in April 2013, but the 31-year-old actor overdosed on heroin and alcohol in a Vancouver hotel room in July that same year. The Scream Queens creator revealed that the last time he saw Monteith was when the late star and his then-girlfriend Michele came to visit him on the set of his HBO film The Normal Heart.

“We hugged, and the last thing he said was, ‘I love you, man, and thank you for helping me get better.’ And then the next thing I knew he was dead. It was like losing a child,” Murphy said.  

Michele told Entertainment Weekly that Murphy was a huge part of her support system after Monteith’s passing. “When I found out [Cory had died], Ryan was one of the first people I called. When Cory was alive, Ryan was very helpful in trying to get him well and healthy, but when that day did come, Ryan did take charge, and he helped me more than I can ever explain,” she said. “He completely cared for me. He made sure I was OK every single day, whether it was coming over to his house and having dinner prepared for me, or making sure I was OK at work.”

The show was never the same after Monteith’s death, and it greatly affected everyone on set. “What started off as being such a great celebration of love and acceptance ultimately became about darkness and death,” the director-producer said.

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Watch Monteith and Michele in a sweet scene from Glee in the video above.

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