Daveigh Chase, the actor best known for voicing Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and portraying Samara in The Ring, has died aged 35, with her death reportedly caused by meningitis and a blood infection that led to sepsis, according to statements given to TMZ by her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez. She died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after being hospitalised earlier this month.
Chase had reportedly been admitted to hospital in early June due to malnutrition, Hernandez told the outlet, before her condition worsened.
Her death was first reported by TMZ and later confirmed through representatives, though full official medical documentation has not been publicly released. Nothing is confirmed yet so everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
Daveigh Chase, the voice of Lilo in Disney's "Lilo & Stitch" and Samara in "The Ring," has ded at 35, according to TMZ. Her boyfriend says meningitis and a blood infection led to septic complications. She had recently been hospitalized for malnutrition. #breakingnewes pic.twitter.com/6bT84Q7OEs
— Jill Winter (@JillWinterMusic) June 17, 2026
Daveigh Chase Death And What We Know So Far
Hernandez said Chase had been battling both meningitis and an infection in her blood, which progressed into septic shock. The timeline, as described, suggests a rapid deterioration following her hospital admission.
Sepsis, a severe and potentially fatal response to infection, can escalate quickly, particularly when underlying health conditions are present.
John Ryan Jr., Chase's longtime representative, described her death as a profound loss. 'Daveigh was the sweetest woman on the planet and this is a huge loss to all of us,' he told Yahoo, adding that they had been working on a documentary about her life at the time of her passing. H
e also told the BBC that she lived quietly, far removed from the industry's spotlight. 'She was not very Hollywood. She'd rather eat at Bob's Big Boy and go home with the cats.'
That detail lands differently now. Not tragic in a dramatic, headline-grabbing way, but in the quieter sense of someone slipping out of reach.
Reports also indicate that Ryan and a family member had recently hired a private investigator after losing contact with Chase. 'We were so close to finding her,' he told the California Post. That unresolved thread how someone once so visible could become so hard to reach lingers.
Highlights From Child Star to Cult Icon
Born on 24 July 1990 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Chase's career began early, with a 1998 appearance in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. She quickly built a reputation as a versatile young performer, moving between television and film with unusual ease.
Her breakthrough came with a string of roles that, in hindsight, feel almost wild in their range. In 2001, she appeared in Donnie Darko as Samantha, the younger sister of Jake Gyllenhaal's character. A year later, she delivered two performances that would define her legacy in very different ways.
She voiced Chihiro in the English dub of Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away, a role requiring emotional subtlety and restraint. That same year, she terrified audiences as Samara in The Ring, emerging from a television screen in one of horror cinema's most enduring images. Two sides of the same actor, both memorable.
Actress Daveigh Chase has sadly passed away at 35. She was best known for voicing Lilo in 'Lilo & Stitch' and playing Samara Morgan in 'The Ring' 🕊🙏🏻💔 pic.twitter.com/dPK2PAYfxu
— My Mixtapez (@mymixtapez) June 17, 2026
Her voice performance in Lilo & Stitch earned her an Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production. It remains, for many, her most recognisable role warm, chaotic, deeply human. Not the kind of performance you forget.
Chase continued working steadily through the 2000s, with appearances in CSI, Cold Case, and Without a Trace. Her longest-running role came in HBO's Big Love, where she played Rhonda from 2006 to 2011. Later film work included S. Darko, Jack Goes Home in 2016, and American Romance, which marked her final acting credit.
In a 2009 interview with Interview magazine, she said: 'I just want to make something that I love and people will respect. I want to do things that will change someone's life, not something they'll forget about tomorrow.' It is the kind of quote that can feel routine until it doesn't.
Her later years were more complicated. Chase stepped back from acting full-time in 2015 and faced legal issues, including a 2018 arrest on a misdemeanour drug possession charge. In 2017, she was also arrested as a passenger in a stolen vehicle.
These incidents, while reported at the time, never fully defined her public image but they hinted at a life that had drifted from its earlier structure.
Fans React To Actress' Sudden Passing
Online, reaction to her death has been immediate and emotional. Clips of her performances in The Ring and Lilo & Stitch have resurfaced across X and YouTube, with fans expressing a mix of nostalgia and disbelief. Some posts describe her as 'the voice of childhood;' others fixate on the eerie permanence of Samara, a character that, ironically, never seemed to age.
It raises an uncomfortable question about child stardom and what comes after. Not a new question, but one that never quite gets answered.
There is, at this stage, no formal statement from public health officials or a released medical report confirming the precise sequence of events leading to her death. What exists are accounts from those closest to her, fragments of a timeline, and a body of work that remains oddly intact untouched by the messier parts of her later life.
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