Lea Michele: Cory Monteith would have loved my new boyfriend

Lea Michele may have moved on to new boyfriend Matthew Paetz, but she can’t stop talking about the past.

While chatting on the Fempire podcast Tuesday, Michele made a kind-of creepy revelation that her current beau would have loved her former boyfriend Cory Monteith, who tragically died from a lethal combination of heroin and alcohol in 2013.

“He is very respectful for the person that I was with. And that again is something I love so much about him and I really know that Cory would love him too,” Michele, 29, explained. “And that’s all that we really hold within our hearts, and so does everyone else in my life.”

Michele and Monteith, who starred together on TV’s “Glee,” were together for two years before his untimely death. The actress met Paetz, 30, while shooting the music video for her single “On My Way” nearly a year later. But as their relationship began to blossom, as did the backlash from fans.

“I love my fans. They’re incredible and they were really a part of my whole story and my whole journey with me, so I do come from a place of understanding, but it’s also really hard,” she said. “You know, every time I post a picture, then it’s just a landslide of comments that talk about my past and bring that up rather than projecting positivity.”

Despite the hardships the pair have faced, Michele has truly found her rock in Paetz.

“It’s really, I have to say, that is honestly what I love so much about Matt. That’s honestly what is so incredible about him because at the end of the day, this industry is really tough and the only way to really get through is to create a solid unit. And that’s really what we have been since day one,” Michele continued. “We’ve stood by each other through anything that was thrown our way. He’s such a great man that he would never really let anything like that ever crack our lovely little core that we’ve created.”