Lea Michele visited The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday where she opened up about moving forward after the death of her boyfriend and costar Cory Monteith in July.

The Glee actress, who briefly lived in actress Kate Hudson's home to cope with the death, spoke about going back to work after the tragic incident. The show's director, Ryan Murphy, allowed Michele to decide if she wanted to return to the show's set.

"I said I have to go back to work. We have to do this is, they're my family and what people also don't understand is that going to work is no harder than being at home and being in the house and opening up a closet and seeing a pair of shoes," she said. "Grief goes with you every day, whatever you're doing. When there are great moments, when there are hard moments. So I'd rather, for me, be at work with the people that I love that are going through the same thing."

The 27-year-old, who plays Rachel Berry on Glee, said that being in the public eye during the time was difficult. But, Michele also said she found some strength from the words of her mother who told her, "There's an empowerment that comes with grief and at some point you find it and it's very hard but you will find it."

DeGeneres then recalled the moment Monteith visited her talk show in 2012 and spoke fondly of his girlfriend. A teary-eyed Michele called it one of her most treasured memories.

"I literally lived every day of my life feeling like the luckiest girl in the whole world," she said. "I just thought he was the greatest man."

Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on the Fox show, died at the age of 31 from a mixture of heroin and alcohol while in a Vancouver hotel on July 13.

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