Daveigh Chase, the child actress who gave voice to Disney's Lilo and unsettled a generation of moviegoers as the ghostly Samara Morgan in "The Ring," died Tuesday at the age of 35. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, told press that Chase succumbed to meningitis and a blood infection that led to septic complications and organ shutdown, Page Six reported.
She had been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital earlier in June for severe malnutrition. By the time the public learned the full scope of her condition, it was too late.
Chase's death is more than a Hollywood obituary. It is the final chapter of a story that should trouble anyone who pays attention to how fame chews up young people and spits them out, and how the systems around them fail to intervene until a GoFundMe page is the last resort.
Chase built an extraordinary résumé before most kids finish middle school. In 2001, she appeared in the cult film "Donnie Darko" and voiced Chihiro in the English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated fantasy "Spirited Away." The following year, she landed two roles that would define her legacy: the lead voice of Lilo in Disney's animated "Lilo & Stitch" and the role of Samara Morgan in "The Ring."
Those four credits alone, all packed into a span of roughly two years, made her one of the most recognizable young performers of the early 2000s. The range was remarkable, a warm-hearted Hawaiian girl in one film, a terrifying child-spirit crawling out of a television set in another.
In a 2009 interview with Interview Magazine, Chase expressed ambitions that went beyond box-office returns. The Washington Times reported her words from that conversation:
"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."
What happened between that aspiration and her death at 35 in a hospital bed is a grim trajectory that her boyfriend's own words only partially illuminate.
Hernandez, in a GoFundMe campaign he set up before Chase died, described a woman who had endured far more hardship than her early fame suggested. He called her "a light in [his] life" but acknowledged the darkness that surrounded her.
"After a difficult childhood and a painful falling out with her family, Daveigh was bullied and struggled to find safety and happiness in downtown LA."
The details that have emerged since her death paint a picture even starker than Hernandez's careful words. A video allegedly showing Chase severely underweight and barely conscious on Skid Row surfaced at the end of 2025, the New York Post reported. Her manager, John Ryan, and her stepsister, Gaia Brown, had hired a private investigator to locate her and get her into a rehabilitation facility in Costa Rica.
They ran out of time.
Ryan's grief was plain. "We were so close to finding her," he said. "Daveigh was the sweetest and brightest light in Hollywood. I can't believe this is real. Her legacy and work will live on forever."
The gap between "so close" and "too late" is where the real failure sits. A woman who had voiced one of Disney's most beloved characters was living on Skid Row, one of the most visible concentrations of homelessness and human suffering in America, and no institution caught her in time. Not the city. Not the state. Not the sprawling network of social services that Los Angeles funds with billions of taxpayer dollars every year. A private investigator hired by her own manager came closer than any of them.
Chase's last known Instagram post dates to November 19, 2017. In a black-and-white photo, she stands next to a unicorn balloon near a sidewalk sign on a sunny day, wearing a black sheer top, distressed jeans, simple sunglasses, and a long necklace. The caption reads: "Unicorns DO exist 😻"
That was it. Nearly a decade of silence on the platform followed. When news of her death broke Wednesday, fans flooded the comments section of that post with tributes. The recent death of veteran actor John Nolan drew similar outpourings from fans who remembered his work across decades, but Chase's case carries a particular sting because of her age and the circumstances that preceded her passing.
"RIP beautiful girl, you deserved so much better," one commenter wrote. "Thank you for the nostalgia, your special words & voice, that molded these characters to be something so memorable in our lives."
Others were briefer. "Say it ain't so," wrote one. "Rest peacefully in Paradise," wrote another.
Hernandez's GoFundMe page described Chase's condition in terms that left little room for hope. He wrote that doctors had told him she might not have much time left.
"All she ever wanted was a place where we could live together, feel safe, and be happy. Now, more than ever, I want to give her that sense of home and peace in her final days."
The fundraising goal and total amount raised have not been publicly disclosed. The New York Post's reporting raised concerns about a potentially fraudulent GoFundMe set up after Chase's passing, a separate matter from Hernandez's campaign, which was established before her death. The distinction matters, but it also underscores how quickly grifters circle tragedy in the digital age. The prison sentence handed to Matthew Perry's personal assistant for his role in that actor's fatal ketamine injections is a reminder that exploitation of vulnerable celebrities does not end when the cameras stop rolling.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. No official medical examiner or coroner statement confirming the cause of death has been publicly reported. The name of the Los Angeles hospital where Chase was treated has not been disclosed. Whether she had any immediate surviving family members beyond the stepsister mentioned in reporting is unclear. The specifics of the "difficult childhood" and family estrangement referenced by Hernandez remain unexplained.
Chase's story fits a pattern that Americans have watched play out too many times. A young performer achieves extraordinary success, faces personal demons that the industry either ignores or enables, and drifts into a crisis that ends in tragedy. The public mourns. The tributes pour in. Nothing changes.
What makes Chase's case particularly difficult to look away from is the sheer visibility of her suffering. She was not hiding in a gated mansion. She was on Skid Row, blocks from City Hall, blocks from the offices of elected officials who campaign on compassion and spend lavishly on homelessness programs that produce little measurable improvement. Actress Mindy Cohn's recent disclosure of her cancer fight after stepping away from social media drew attention to how former child stars can vanish from public view. Chase vanished into something far worse than privacy.
Hernandez wrote that when they met, he promised to protect her and give her "the love and comfort she deserved." He said they found "moments of happiness and hope." Those words carry weight precisely because they are modest. He did not claim to have saved her. He claimed to have tried.
The city of Los Angeles, with its vast bureaucracy and its ever-expanding homeless-services budget, cannot credibly make even that claim.
Chase's filmography will outlive the circumstances of her death. Millions of children grew up with her voice as Lilo. Millions more remember the chill of watching Samara Morgan emerge from that well. Her work in "Spirited Away" helped introduce American audiences to one of the greatest animated films ever made. The breadth of that legacy, achieved almost entirely before she turned eighteen, is staggering.
The entertainment industry's track record with child performers is not a new concern, but each new case renews the question of what, if anything, the people who profit from young talent owe them after the spotlight fades. The recent passing of singer Claudine Longet at 84 offered a reminder that fame's aftermath takes many forms, some quiet, some violent, some simply tragic.
Chase's final Instagram photo, a young woman smiling beside a unicorn balloon on a sunny sidewalk, is not haunting because of anything in the image itself. It is haunting because of everything that came after it: the silence, the streets, the hospital, the end.
She was 35 years old. She voiced one of Disney's most famous characters. And she died after living on Skid Row, malnourished, while a city that spends billions on homelessness looked the other way. If that doesn't tell you everything about where good intentions go to die in modern Los Angeles, nothing will.
