The death of “The Ring” actor Daveigh Chase was the result of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) with mixed drug use as a contributing factor.
The 35-year-old child star who also voiced a title character in the animated series “Lilo & Stitch” died June 16. Chase’s boyfriend Roy Hernandez initially told TMZ that she’d died from complications related to meningitis and sepsis.
She was believed to have been living in an RV near Los Angeles’ skid row when she was taken to a Los Angeles hospital where she died. Friends who tried locating Chase were said to have been concerned about her living situation in recent years.
Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s office determined she’d died from AIDS, as first reported by US Weekly.
AIDS is a late stage of infection associated with HIV that occurs when the body can no longer defend against illness.
Chase’s mother said her daughter struggled to recover from a painkiller problem associated with a 2016 motorcycle crash, according to TMZ.
That’s also the year of her last IMDb credit, a film called “American Romance.”
Hernandez raised more than $4,000 with a GoFundMe page collecting donations to address Chase’s illness. Her former manager told Deadline that Chase’s estate has the resources to provide for her final expenses.
Her friend Shawn Rosenthal told People that he lost touch with Chase after getting clean from drugs in 2023.
“She was surrounding herself with the worst of the worst people,” he said. “It’s such a tragedy because no one cared for her best interests at all.”
