Daveigh Chase, the actress who gave voice to Lilo in Disney's animated hit "Lilo & Stitch" and terrified audiences as Samara Morgan in "The Ring," died at age 35 from meningitis and a blood infection that led to sepsis. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, disclosed the cause of death after Page Six reported that news of her passing broke on a Wednesday, one day after she died.
Chase had been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital earlier in June for malnutrition, TMZ reported at the time. What followed, a rapid decline into critical condition, a crowdfunding plea from a boyfriend no one in her inner circle recognized, and the revelation that she had millions of dollars in entertainment residuals she never collected, paints a grim picture of a child star who fell through every net that was supposed to catch her.
The facts here are not complicated. They are just bleak. A woman who voiced one of the most beloved animated characters in modern Disney history spent her final stretch in downtown Los Angeles, struggling with addiction and malnutrition, while unclaimed checks from SAG-AFTRA piled up somewhere she apparently could not or would not reach them.
Chase built a remarkable résumé before most people finish middle school. In 2001, she appeared in "Donnie Darko" and voiced Chihiro in the English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated film "Spirited Away." The following year brought two defining roles: Lilo in Disney's "Lilo & Stitch" and the ghostly Samara Morgan in "The Ring."
Those credits alone would have been a career. For Chase, they became the high-water mark.
Her former manager, John Ryan, told the New York Post that Chase had millions of dollars in unclaimed SAG-AFTRA residuals from her work as Lilo, including cuts from merchandise, theme park attractions, and voice residuals. Ryan described Chase as "too far gone" to collect any of it, a reference to what he characterized as an addiction to heroin and fentanyl that consumed her adult life.
The Post reported that Chase was filmed in late 2025 looking severely malnourished in a trailer on Skid Row. That detail alone, a former Disney lead living on Skid Row while residual payments sat uncollected, tells a story no GoFundMe page can soften.
Before Chase died, Hernandez launched a GoFundMe campaign on her behalf. In the campaign text, he described Chase as "a light in [his] life" and wrote that "behind the scenes, she's faced more than her share of hardship." He detailed what he called a difficult childhood and a painful falling out with her family, saying she "was bullied and struggled to find safety and happiness in downtown LA."
Hernandez wrote that when they met, he promised to protect her. "Together, we found moments of happiness and hope," he stated. He said Chase had been diagnosed with several "serious" blood infections and meningitis, and that doctors told him she "may 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."
Those words read as sincere grief. But Ryan, Chase's former manager, raised a pointed warning. He said publicly that "a man claiming to be her boyfriend that none of us friends or her family has heard of has set up a GoFundMe on her and her families behalf." Ryan urged the public to be cautious, a stark counterpoint to the campaign's emotional appeals.
Whether the GoFundMe was legitimate or exploitative remains an open question. No family members have issued public statements. The total amount raised or the campaign's goal has not been disclosed in available reporting. What is clear is that a woman with millions in unclaimed earnings ended up the subject of a crowdfunding plea from a man her own manager said nobody recognized.
The entertainment industry has seen a troubling string of premature deaths in recent months, including the death of Oliver Tree at 32 in a helicopter collision in Brazil.
After news of Chase's death broke, fans flooded the comments on her last Instagram post, a black-and-white photo uploaded on November 19, 2017. In it, Chase stood next to a unicorn balloon near a sidewalk sign on what was described as a sunny day. She wore a black sheer top, black distressed jeans, simple sunglasses, and a long necklace. Her caption read: "Unicorns DO exist 😻."
That post, nearly a decade old, became a makeshift memorial. One commenter wrote, "RIP and thank you." Another said, "Rest peacefully in Paradise." A longer tribute captured the tone of many:
"RIP beautiful girl, you deserved so much better, thank you for the nostalgia, your special words & voice, that molded these characters to be something so memorable in our lives. You left an imprint on all our hearts, God bless you, soar with the angels 💔🕊️"
The gap between that 2017 photo, a young woman posing with a balloon on a sidewalk, and the circumstances of her death is difficult to reconcile. It is the kind of before-and-after that addiction produces with ruthless efficiency.
Chase's death adds to a pattern of young performers lost far too soon. Actor Alex Duong died at 42 after a cancer battle, and other figures connected to the entertainment world have faced similarly untimely ends.
The details here raise questions that go beyond one woman's biography. Chase was a working child actress at the highest level of the industry. She voiced a character that generated, and continues to generate, enormous revenue for Disney through sequels, merchandise, theme park rides, and streaming. Those residuals existed. They were owed to her. She never collected them.
Ryan said he spent years trying to reach Chase. He could not. The addiction was too deep, the estrangement from family too complete. The system that profited from her talent as a child had no mechanism to ensure she received what she earned as an adult, or that someone intervened when she could not care for herself.
This is not a new story. Hollywood has a long, ugly history with child performers. Coogan's Law exists because Jackie Coogan's parents spent his earnings. But no law can force a grown woman battling addiction to open her mail or call her union. The question is whether anyone with standing, a manager, a guild, a studio, could have done more before she ended up on Skid Row.
The circumstances surrounding other recent Hollywood-connected deaths have similarly raised uncomfortable questions about the systems meant to support people in the industry.
No official confirmation of Chase's cause of death has come from a medical examiner or hospital. The sole source for the meningitis-and-sepsis account is Hernandez, the boyfriend whose relationship to Chase has been publicly disputed by her former manager. That does not mean the account is false. It means it is unverified by any independent authority, and responsible observers should note the distinction.
Chase's family has remained silent, or at least, no family statements have surfaced. The "painful falling out" Hernandez described on the GoFundMe page is the only reference to her relatives. Whether that estrangement was a cause or a consequence of her struggles, or some combination, is unknown.
In a different context, the death of Kelly Lee Curtis drew attention precisely because an official coroner's determination provided clarity. No such clarity exists yet for Chase.
Daveigh Chase earned millions for one of the world's largest entertainment companies before she was old enough to drive. She died at 35, malnourished and critically ill, in a city where her voice still echoes from theme park speakers and living room televisions. Somewhere between the recording booth and Skid Row, every institution that touched her life, family, industry, government, failed to hold the line.
A society that can turn a child into a brand ought to have some answer for what happens when the brand outlives the person behind it.
