AceShowbiz -

Five months after Cory Monteith's death, Lea Michele talks about coping with the tragic passing in her first TV interview. Appearing in Thursday, December 12 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", the "Glee" star said that she was doing well thanks to support from friends and family.

"It's certainly been a pretty rough year, but I've been surrounded by such great people, such great family," Michele admitted. Instead of staying at home, Michele decided to return to work soon so that she could be with people who loved her.

"There's this grief (that) goes with you every day whatever you're doing. When there's great moments, hard moments. So I'd rather, for me, be at work with the people who I love that are going through (it). It obviously has its own triggers, but at the end of the day I feel so safe there," she explained. "I'm just trying to do my best for him because I know that that's what he would have wanted and to just do my best and to you know, hopefully make something positive for where I go in the rest of my life."

Monteith confirmed that he was in relationship with Michele when he appeared on the show in December 2012. When the host Ellen DeGeneres mentioned it, the actress/singer said, "It's one of my favorite memories."

"I remember when he came home that night, he kind of puffed out his chest and he was like, 'I talked about you on 'Ellen' today.' I was so happy. He's such a private person, and I literally lived every day of my life feeling like the luckiest girl in the whole world. I just thought he was the greatest man and so at that moment, that memory, it means so much to me," she added.