Lea Michele pays touching tribute to Cory Monteith on the fourth anniversary of his death

Glee star Lea Michele has posted a touching tribute to her late partner Cory Monteith to mark the fourth anniversary of his death.

Taking to Instagram, the actress wrote '4 years and it still feels like yesterday... love you more C,' alongside a snap her fingers holding a sweet black and white photograph of the pair together.

Fans have flooded the post with messages of support for the actress, with many saying that it had reduced them to tears.

'This is so beautiful makes me cry,' said one commenter, and another wrote: 'All my heart is with you and Him.'

'Love this and love you,' agreed a third. 'I've been rewatching the series in memory. ❤️ thinking of you.'

Cory's death shocked the world when he was found unresponsive in a Vancouver hotel room in 2013. The actor, who played central character Finn in the smash hit TV show Glee alongside Lea, was thought to have died from a drug and alcohol overdose after dining out with his manager.

The official cause of his death was reported as 'mixed drug toxicity, involving intravenous heroin use combined with the ingestion of alcohol', and also noted was that he 'had a history of illicit drug use with intermittent periods of rehabilitation and of abstinence from drugs.'

In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in December of that year - her first following Cory's death - Lea said: 'It's certainly been a pretty rough year, but I've been surrounded by such great people, such great family.'

'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.'

'There's this is grief goes with you everyday [with] whatever you're doing—when there are great moments, when there are hard moments - so I'd rather be at work with the people who I love that are going through it.'

'I really feel like I'm still trying to figure out all of this. It's been only a few months, but my mom has experienced a lot of loss in her life and she told me at one point, there is an empowerment that comes with grief - at some point you find it.'

'It's very hard but you will find it, and I think at a certain point you can choose to sort of fall from this or you can choose to rise. And that's what I'm just trying to do my best for him, because I know that that's what he would have.'