Disaster Actress Daveigh Chase Dead at 35 - Starred in 'The Ring,' Voiced Lilo in 'Lilo & Stitch'

Actress Daveigh Chase Dead at 35​

By TMZ Staff
Published June 17, 2026 9:53 AM PDT | Updated June 17, 2026 12:27 PM PDT


Daveigh Chase -- the former child actress -- is dead ... TMZ has learned.

The actress' boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, tells TMZ ... Daveigh died Tuesday from meningitis and an infection in her blood, which caused her to have septic issues and led to her body shutting down.



Alamy
We're told Daveigh had been admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles earlier this month because of malnutrition.

Daveigh caught her big break in Hollywood early on ... voicing Lilo in the hit Disney film "Lilo & Stitch" back in 2002 and the follow-up TV show. She also voiced Chihiro Ogino in the American dub of "Spirited Away."


Horror movie fans will recognize her from her haunting performance as Samara Morgan ... the main antagonist in the hit 2002 film "The Ring" ... for which she won an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.

Beginning in 2006, Daveigh earned a recurring role in the HBO series "Big Love" ... which follows a fundamentalist, polygamist Mormon family. She played Rhonda Volmer in 32 episodes of the hit show during its five-season run.


Her other credits include ... "Donnie Darko," "Beethoven's 5th," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," "ER," "Mercy," and more.

Daveigh had numerous run-ins with the law over the years, which we've covered.


Play video content
NOVEMBER 2012

THE LAST TIME WE SAW HER
Video: The Last Time We Saw Daveigh Chase
TMZ.com
We last caught up with Daveigh in 2012 ... when we asked her about her makeup habits -- and she told us about her latest project.

Daveigh was 35.

RIP

 

[GOY MENACE]

Is there any child actor that doesn't become a mess?

Leo DiCaprio

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Hollywood must be purged.

 

[Cheezer]

Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson have been acting since they were kids but they weren't in anything big.

...ET wasn't big?

 

[Unpaid Emotional Labourer]

...ET wasn't big?

Neither of them were in ET.

 

[Cheezer]

Neither of them were in ET.

Fuck me, I was mixing Reese Witherspoon up with Drew Barrymore.

 

[Unpaid Emotional Labourer]

Fuck me, I was mixing Reese Witherspoon up with Drew Barrymore.

It can be confusing since Drew seems like she should be a generation older than Reese, but they’re like a year apart. It’s just that Drew was a toddler when her mom first started pimping her out. Reese is from Southern aristocracy, where they’re too classy to pimp their kids out until they’re in their teens.

 

[ZsaZsaBinks]

Fuck me, I was mixing Reese Witherspoon up with Drew Barrymore.

Drew was a trainwreck for a while but she did eventually get over it.

 

[Reepicheep]

She died of AIDS.

 

[Pastry Man]

She died of AIDS.
Ver archivo adjunto 9209034

Article (Archive)

I thought AIDS was cool and safe now

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

She died of AIDS.
Ver archivo adjunto 9209034

>struggled with drugs since she was 13
Which, not so coincidentally, is the same age she was the night P Diddy invited her to the afterparty of the 2003 MTV Music Awards.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Article (Archive)

I thought AIDS was cool and safe now

Gay cancer/ GRIDS will never be cool. You can only catch it if you are a drug addict or faggot who takes it up the ass/ injects meth into their cock.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

She died of AIDS.
Ver archivo adjunto 9209034

Samara I guess caught it from one of her victims.

(Jokes aside, holy shit.)

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Article (Archive)

I thought AIDS was cool and safe now

Not when you're sharing needles and living in a tent on Skid Row.

 

[AveraDiane]

That's so fucked.

 

[Standardized Profile]

If only a safe, clean needle exchange had been available she might not have gotten AIDS; she could have died a natural death of fentanyl overdose instead.

 

[Robbyretard]

 

[urr13 account]

most likely got aids from jewish movie producers raping her

 

[BongoMongo]

Is there any child actor that doesn't become a mess?
Also explains dying from septic shock.
People in a first world country just ignoring an infection is wild

Christina Ricci, maybe? She went off the rails with being a skelly for some time but seems to have sorted herself now (good Lord I had such a girl crush on her in Casper).

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

She died of AIDS.

Wow, I thought that died out in the early 90's.

 

[KiwiFuzz2]

How did a fairly young white woman die of AIDS? Was it not diagnosed????