Although Cory Monteith died of drug overdose at the age of 31 in July, the producers of Glee are not exploiting his personal problem to gain more viewers when Season 5 returns.

Ryan Murphy, the creator of the hits Fox series, admitted he considered the idea of Cory's Glee character, Finn Hudson, dying of drug overdose in the series to explain the death of his character which would be actually art imitating life, but he eventually thumbed down the idea.

"At one point, we were going to have his character die after an accidental drug overdose - that was something we had considered. But we have decided that we're not going to have him pass that," Deadline quoted Murphy.

However, he refused to disclosed how they would explain his being written off the hit musical and even hinted they may not even tell the cause of Finn's death.

"The idea being, how somebody died is interesting and maybe morbid, but we say very early on in the episode, 'This episode is about a celebration of that character's life,'" Murphy pointed out.

He said capitalising on Cory's death for the sake of more viewers is exploitative.

Glee fans could expect instead a tribute episode for Cory as well as two Beatles episode which the cast did while still grieving for their fellow actor who had left them permanently.

He said they will begin shooting Cory's memorial episode this week and will send the finished episode to 20th Century Fox Television for approval. After the finish shooting and editing they memorial episode, the producers will take two to three weeks to discuss changes in Glee brought by the alcohol and heroin overdose tragedy.

"We loved Cory and we loved Finn and it feels like a huge loss and a huge heartache not to have either of them around," Murphy said.

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