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Daveigh Chase dies at 35 after roles in The Ring and Lilo & Stitch

Daveigh Chase, the US actor whose childhood performances shaped two sharply different 2002 screen memories, has died at 35. Roy Hernandez, who identified himself as her boyfriend, said Chase died on 16 June after meningitis and blood infections led to sepsis; no coroner confirmation was available in the sources consulted. Chase became internationally recognisable as Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and as Samara Morgan in the US horror film The Ring, roles that made her both a family-animation voice and a modern horror image in the same year. Her later credits included the English-language voice of Chihiro in Spirited Away, Donnie Darko and HBO's Big Love. For Belgian audiences, the story is mainly cultural: it marks the death of a performer tied to films that travelled widely through cinemas, television, streaming and family viewing across Europe.

Belgium Impulse Editorial·22 June 2026·3 min read·6 sources
Key signal

This is not a Belgian policy story, but it reaches Belgian families, filmgoers and streaming audiences who encountered Chase through globally distributed cinema and television. Lilo & Stitch remains a cross-generational Disney title, while The Ring sits in the shared horror canon for many European viewers. For culture editors, parents and younger adults in Belgium, her death also reopens a familiar question around child stardom: how short early fame can leave a performer remembered worldwide even after a limited adult career.

Daveigh Chase (American actor, 1990-2026) was best known for a brief but memorable early-2000s screen career. Roy Hernandez (the man who identified himself as Chase's boyfriend in public accounts of her final illness) is the named source for the reported medical cause. The Ring (2002 US remake of the Japanese horror film Ringu) introduced Chase as Samara Morgan, the spectral child at the centre of its cursed-video plot. Lilo & Stitch (2002 Disney animated film) gave Chase the voice role of Lilo Pelekai, a Hawaiian child whose bond with an alien became a long-running franchise. Spirited Away (2001 Studio Ghibli film by Hayao Miyazaki, released in English-language versions in 2002) used Chase as the US voice of Chihiro. Donnie Darko (2001 cult science-fiction film by Richard Kelly) and Big Love (HBO drama series, 2006-2011) were among her other recognised credits.

Background

Filmographies and award records list 2002 as Chase's defining year: she voiced Lilo in Lilo & Stitch and played Samara Morgan in The Ring while still a child actor. The Ring followed the late-1990s and early-2000s wave of US remakes of Japanese horror, after Ringu became an international reference point in 1998. Lilo & Stitch, released by Disney in 2002, later expanded through direct-to-video films and a television series. Chase's career then moved through television, including Big Love, before screen credits largely stopped after 2016 in the sources consulted.

Why now

The story is timely because public reports on 17-18 June 2026 said Chase had died on 16 June 2026, with the reported medical cause attributed to Roy Hernandez.

OIS Intelligence

What to watch

Watch for any formal statement from Chase's family, representatives, SAG-AFTRA-related contacts or a public medical authority. If no such statement appears, the cause of death should remain attributed rather than stated as independently confirmed.

Sources & evidence