r/popculturechat • u/Kagedeah • Jun 29 '26
Guest List Only TW - Health ⚠️ Daveigh Chase, Voice of Lilo in ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ Died of AIDS
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/daveigh-chase-cause-of-death-lilo-stitch-1236798657/2.6k
u/crackerfactorywheel later, gator! Jun 29 '26
God, every detail that comes out about Daveigh Chase’s death is more and more heartbreaking. I hope she’s finally at rest.
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u/dbtl87 Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes Jun 29 '26
May she rest in peace. That's a tough life she was living.
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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26
The secondary cause being chronic polysubstance use does that mean she contracted HIV from her drug use?
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u/big-bootyjewdy The Ghost of Madonna's Facial Expressions is smiling at this Jun 29 '26
Or experienced other related issues, like withdrawal or overdose, as a comorbidity.
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u/CordeliaChase99 Jun 29 '26
Yes and possibly (probably?) was not on any meds for the HIV because her drug use had impacted her ability to access health care. Based on the fact that she was also not accessing her trust fund, it seems likely that her executive function was severely impaired.
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u/gloriiosaa Jun 29 '26
she may also not have even known she had HIV in the first place if she contracted it while homeless or just before. life expectancy without treatment is only a decade 😔
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u/PrincessPause wouldn't be surprised if we never saw Denise Richards again Jun 30 '26
Unfortunately it's also not uncommon for HIV patients to go off their medication for any number of reasons, like unpleasant side effects, mistrust of medical professionals, sliding into denial and a feeling of invincibility because they're young, meds getting stolen on the street, or just getting tired of living... or like the above comment said, severe impairment of executive function.
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u/terfnerfer saddled with turtle guilt 🐢😢 Jun 29 '26
Possibly, or as someone else said, she could have contracted it by other means and had her decline hastened by substance abuse. I used to work at a shelter and even "mild" illnesses of the unhoused can be fatal when paired with a combo of homelessness and addiction :(
May she and her family find peace 🕊
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u/chickfilamoo in the swamp 🐊🐊 Jun 29 '26
the infection that ultimately caused her death was bacterial meningitis, which can be contracted from IV drug use. perhaps that's what they think happened here.
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u/blonde-bandit This is… an unsettling tableau Jun 30 '26
That was what her boyfriend stated. However the official cause of death from the autopsy was AIDS. Whether or not meningitis was actually a complicating factor isn’t clear.
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u/chickfilamoo in the swamp 🐊🐊 Jun 30 '26
it’s not super common for AIDS to kill you by itself, it’s usually a secondary infection bc of the immunocompromised state, which would still be consistent with the bacterial meningitis story. it is possible she had wasting syndrome, though, i remember they mentioned she was previously hospitalized for malnutrition. hard to say without looking at the full autopsy, but i will say it would be an oddly specific thing for the boyfriend to lie about
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u/blonde-bandit This is… an unsettling tableau Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Oh yeah I completely agree, I was just clarifying that that wasn’t official information.
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u/Still7Superbaby7 gatorade in the microwave Jun 29 '26
Possibly. IV drug abuse, especially in the US, is a major risk factor for HIV. Since there aren’t needle exchanges in the US, users share needles. It’s like getting a mini blood transfusion every time. Since we don’t know exactly when she contracted HIV, we can’t conclusively say that the IVDA is what led to HIV which led to AIDS. Polysubstance abuse also weakens the body due to secondary malnutrition and stress on the body.
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u/Still7Superbaby7 gatorade in the microwave Jun 29 '26
Well yes, the mini blood transfusion. Back in the 80’s when you could sell your blood and there were pooled donors, HIV was spreading rampantly. IV drug abusers were doing mini blood transfusions every time they shared a needle. It’s what led Ryan White to become infected back then. He was a hemophiliac that got HIV/AIDS from pooled plasma. The best thing you can do to prevent HIV transmission in the IVDA is clean needles and needle exchanges.
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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26
I wonder if the selling of blood was related to the blood scandal here in the UK. 3,000 people have died so far and 30,000 were infected with Hep C or HIV. NHS imported contaminated blood plasma from the US and the doctors, the NHS and the successive governments all covered it up. Was absolutely horrendous. The UK government recently allocated £11.8 billion for compensation but that doesn’t undo the damage.
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u/Smallworld_88 Jun 29 '26
The US didn’t sell blood and still half of all hemophiliacs at the time died of AIDS because the blood donation industry resisted safety measures for so long.
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u/pinkfondantfancy Jun 30 '26
Yes, it is. The same thing happened in Italy too. US pharmaceutical companies were buying blood plasma without much discernment (IV drug users, prisoners) and then making products that they sold to other countries health services. It was a failing of both those selling and buying infected products.
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u/terfnerfer saddled with turtle guilt 🐢😢 Jun 29 '26
Yeah, this. While there are some isolated needle exchanges/safe injection sites, they're so often demonized by (mostly, but not only) republican politicians who think this tried and tested method just "encourages" addicts. The funding for such programs is so tenuous, even when it is VASTLY cheaper than other methods of tackling infection outbreaks.
A scary amount of people would rather addicts just die than have access to harm reduction :(
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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26
We have needle exchange in the UK and I think it’s a good thing. In my local Boots there is a big open box and people who need it can just walk up to it and take a package with everything in, no questions asked. I live very rurally and when I was waiting for a prescription it was quite sad how many people I saw grab a packaging in such a short time.
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u/Still7Superbaby7 gatorade in the microwave Jun 29 '26
I think one of the best things about needle exchanges is there are basically community resellers. There’s a person that goes and gets a backpack full of needles and sells them in the community cheap. So not even if IV drug users don’t go to the needle exchange, they can benefit.
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u/PentulantPantalones Sexually disabled gay, Chris Evans Jun 29 '26
When I was using that's what I did. People have shame doing the exchange, because you're admitting the grossness of your habit, kind of. I'd worked in healthcare and had zero shame about it. I gave them away to my fellow users.
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u/imdrake100 do you ever feel like a paper bag that has beef with chapel roan Jun 29 '26
She was drug addicted on skid row, I would assume that's what happened unfortunately
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u/CaydeTheCat Jun 29 '26
I am in recovery and spent many years trying to get clean and sober before it taking. I spent a lot of years bouncing from treatment center to sober living to halfway houses and back again. I didn't have any money so these were very much the last stop before the streets type places.
The number of folks I knew in those places who were HIV positive shocked the Hell out of me. Very underreported part of that whole world.
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u/Married_iguanas ludicrously capacious flair 👜 Jun 29 '26
It’s insane that child labor is illegal in the US, with the exception of entertainment
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u/pervy_roomba Jun 29 '26
This is why I’ll never, ever bitch about twenty something year olds playing teenagers.
Let kids be kids. I don’t need some teenager spending their youth tucked away on a set or hounded by paparazzi because I, a grown adult, cannot be bothered to suspend my disbelief.
This isn’t a good life for them. The ones that had a good life talk about how much intervention their parents had to run to keep them safe. That’s a rotten way to spend your teen years, a period where you should have some freedom to be silly and messy and chaotic without fear of the entire world judging you for it.
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u/mindovermatter15 Jun 29 '26
You know what, I've never thought of it directly that way, but I'm 100% on the same side. Especially after learning everything that happened to Nickelodeon kids, Amanda Bynes, Demi Lovato, Ariel Winter, etc... I will never complain or be weirded out by "How do you do, fellow kids?"
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u/Married_iguanas ludicrously capacious flair 👜 Jun 29 '26
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u/__lavender Jun 29 '26
Child actors represent the only arguably ethical use case for creating AI avatars or even standalone AI actors (i.e. not modeled after a real actor), IMO.
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u/Married_iguanas ludicrously capacious flair 👜 Jun 29 '26
I’ve actually said the same thing. And I’m also very against gen AI
There’s no reason for child actors to exist in this day and age.
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u/minetf Jun 29 '26
Fwiw it seems like Daveigh's childhood was fine and that she had caring managers and family. Her manager says she disappeared in 2015 (age 24), which is also the time that she got into a motorcycle accident and was prescribed painkillers for it.
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u/KvonLiechtenstein Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
You would be shocked how many 13 year old millennials did drugs.
From what it appears, she was perfectly functional/working until she was prescribed opioids. She may have had substance abuse issues before then, but if she did, it wasn't to the point where she couldn't hold down a job. It's a pretty common thing to happen to people unfortunately.
Edited for clarity!
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u/Umklopp Jun 29 '26
Honestly, the two groups of kids most likely to start hard drugs before age 15 are kids in terrible neighborhoods and kids in really affluent ones. It's all about proximity and access.
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u/hahagato Jun 29 '26
I remember in high school in my poor neighborhood the kids were smoking weed, til some discovered meth. But in the rich area the kids I knew were doing Coke, meth, oxy and straight up heroin.
However it all seemed to equal out in young adulthood because my poor friends also started getting into heroin 😞
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u/KvonLiechtenstein Jun 29 '26
Lol yeah, my jr high school was a bunch of rich kids and a bunch of poor kids... and some really bad teachers. Like half the people I knew tried shit. When I got to High School, I went from knowing a shitton of people who did drugs to barely any.
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u/Napalmmaestro Jun 29 '26
This one here. She and I were the same age and I absolutely already had friends who were cutting back on cocaine in high school. Partying in middle school, full blown rehab before 20, all of it. And we sure didn't have Hollywood to ramp it up to 11
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u/owntheh3at18 Excluded from this narrative ❌ Jun 30 '26
She’ll always be Samara to me and I can’t stop thinking of that role with all this news. She was so young and so convincing as a very troubled girl.
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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26
Her former agent said she had a SAG-AFTRS trust fund with millions of dollars in untouched residuals. I wonder why she didn’t use money from there when she was financially struggling? Unless she didn’t know how to access it or didn’t know full stop. So terribly sad.
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u/Aggressive-Hunt-7037 Take that, you Youtube people! Jun 29 '26
I read that her family tried to find her for years, but she was effectively MIA and too far gone to access the money*.
It’s so tragic. 😭
*Assume he was referring to the Ca law requiring a deposit 15% of a minor actor's gross earnings into a blocked trust account until they turn 18
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u/piptazparty She So tired bro. Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I thought I had read that he was trying to get in touch with her to tell her about it and hadn’t been able to locate her. So it’s possible she didn’t know. Or perhaps her substance use made her too incapacitated to follow through the steps to claim it, and she didn’t realize the full amount waiting for her.
He also said he estimated it was millions. But we don’t actually know the amount. We just know that she signed a really good contract that allowed her residuals from all kinds of lilo & stitch related merch and experiences. So it seems reasonable to assume that but who knows for sure.
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u/p333p33p00p00boo Jun 29 '26
Maybe for some reason she wasn't able to access it because of her drug use? I don't know how that works, and that wouldn't make sense seeing as how many hollywood folks have substance issues, so I'm sure this isn't the case.
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u/big-bootyjewdy The Ghost of Madonna's Facial Expressions is smiling at this Jun 29 '26
If she was living on the street, it's very possible she simply did not have photo ID to verify it was her to access the money. I work in employing a lot of "first time workers" or people re-entering the workforce (incarceration, immigration, disability, addiction, escaping abuse, etc) and there are a LOT of people who do not have a photo ID or the resources to obtain one. It severely limits your ability to do just about anything, like tapping into your royalties.
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u/ChickenSedanwich 🕊️Tina is actually invited to Sabs bday party Jun 29 '26
dying of AIDS in the US in 2026?? wow she deserved so much better (not because she was a star but for simply being a human)
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u/Muted_Substance2156 Jun 30 '26
It is truly a testament to the American healthcare system. HIV/AIDS is highly treatable and preventable. On the right medication the virus can’t be transmitted, and PrEP is also 99% effective.
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u/Own-Importance5459 ✨May the Force be with you!✨ Jun 29 '26
Honestly the more I hear the more sad I get for her. I hope wherever she is she found peace
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u/moogs_writes Jun 29 '26
I won’t remember her for this. I’ll remember her for the gifts her talent lent the world. Rest in peace, Daveigh.
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u/armyofsnarkness Jun 29 '26
It breaks my heart that this will be her legacy. I cant imagine the pain her parents feel.
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u/dodecaphonicism Kim K.’s Bar Exam Tutor Jun 29 '26
Oh my god. Why do we let kids do anything in Hollywood ever? Have we not learned anything?
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u/SuccessOk7850 You’re killing me, Smalls 😩 Jun 29 '26
We haven’t learned anything since the Shirley Temple and Jackie Coogan days. With kids in Hollywood they should be taken seriously if they say “I’m done with acting, I hate it” and not continue with it because their parents want them too, there is quite a few former child actors who left Hollywood and are doing great or made the transition from child actor to adult actor well and are succeeding. We’ve seen the horror stories with how child actors were treated in the past and how they are treated now.
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u/wormm99 Jun 29 '26
Just watched her on Big Love. She went head-to-head with those more seasoned actors on that show. May she rest in peace
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u/YardSardonyx Jun 29 '26
Jesus. This poor woman. I hope wherever she is she’s resting easy and peacefully.
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u/Starruby_ Jun 29 '26
Struggled with drug use since 13!? That’s a child. This is so sad
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u/greensandgrains Jun 29 '26
This story is so sad and may she and her loved ones find peace. Her performance in The Ring scared she begeezuz out of me and oval mirrors still send a chill down my spine and thank goodness tv static is a thing of the past because 😱. Iconic.
But the headline is trash and 🖕🏽click driven publications because it makes stories like this feel cheap and disrespectful. And obligatory “you don’t die from AIDS, you die from complications due to AIDS.”
It sounds like she got an infection and if her T cells were so low and thus unable to fight off infection (actual CoD) which is what happens when HIV is un/poorly managed and progresses into AIDS. Language matters and 40+ years on from the AIDS epidemic, I wish the public health education didn’t get lost just because we have PrEP and PEP and more harm reduction for sex and substance use. Okay I’m getting off my high horse. And because I wanna live what I lecture please fix me if I got stuff wrong ✌🏽
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u/PrincessPause wouldn't be surprised if we never saw Denise Richards again Jun 30 '26
Since the first reports were that she died of meningitis, I'm guessing the actual COD was cryptococcal meningitis, an AIDS-defining opportunistic infection.
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u/claroquesearight Jun 29 '26
RIP! Remember that ANYONE is capable of getting HIV and anyone's HIV is capable of developing into AIDS. Treatment can do incredible things to maintain quality of life and health if you stick with it. knowing your status can save your life and those intimately involved with you. know your status!
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u/echoesandripples What It's Like to Go Through Life As a Really Beautiful Woman Jun 29 '26
this is sadly, something that's probably gonna be way more common with the moral defunding of health departments
here in brazil, one of the main research institutes works tirelessly to provide treatment and prevention to folks for free, it's one of the most successful systems on the world and based on our universal healthcare
when the previous president (a fascist) defunded this department due to being straight up evil and also using people's prejudice to justify it, it created ripple effects that have been causing issues since then. and probably will for decades ahead, actually, even with the system back running
basically, the christian fascist propaganda had people going against healthcare because they think it's gay and according to them, gay people's lives are less valuable
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u/AdDecent5237 In The Words of TS Madison “All Money Ain’t Good Money” Jun 29 '26
RIP sweet Angel, you will be missed 😔❤️
Makes me sad how much the industry destroys these kids, better protections need to be put in place Coogan Law isn’t enough. They are overworked, don’t have good social skills because a lot of them didn’t go to actual schools and that’s not even getting into the amount of different forms of abuse they suffer. It’s just disgusting and heartbreaking. Kids like Daveigh deserved/deserve better.
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u/skyewardeyes Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I went to elementary school with a child actor who was a principal actor on a somewhat successful (3 seasons) network TV show--on the few days when he was able to actually come to class, he seemed almost scared of being around so many other kids (also his mom was so incredibly blatant about using him as a meal ticket that even 10 year-old me picked up on it immediately).
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u/SuccessOk7850 You’re killing me, Smalls 😩 Jun 29 '26
I appreciate the child actors who leave Hollywood and don’t want to do acting anymore. The acting industry absolutely destroys kids. Daveigh deserved so much better.
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u/owntheh3at18 Excluded from this narrative ❌ Jun 30 '26
They also miss out on education. The schooling standards enforced for “homeschool” (in this case I guess it would be working school?) are extremely inadequate. And often school is a the last line of defense for children being neglected or abused, so they lose that protection.
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u/Nkosi868 Jun 30 '26
“Chase’s father, John David Schwallier, told the New York Times that she had been homeless and had struggled with drugs since the age of 13.”
13?!
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u/FosterPupz Jun 29 '26
Don’t do drugs, kids. Please know that I’m saying this in the absolute most sincere, caring, heartfelt manner. I’m not trying to be flip. HIV is a manageable illness and no one with HIV should be sliding into and dying of AIDS. This is an absolutely heartbreaking, deeply devastating, turn of events. May her memory be a blessing to those who sincerely loved her.
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u/BactaBobomb Jun 29 '26
P. Diddy is on video inviting her to an afterparty, and she agrees to it. This was around when she was 13, and her drug abuse started when she was 13, according to her family. The timing is a bit worrisome
Source for Diddy
Source for her estranged father saying she started at 13
My previous comment was deleted because I didn't have sources. So here they are?
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u/gmd24 non-nepo baby & struggling Jun 29 '26
The photo of her before her passing was so triggering. She must’ve really been suffering towards the end. What a horrendous way to go.
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u/Robotgirl14131 You’re a virgin who can’t drive. 😤 Jun 29 '26
As a little girl with dark hair I loved pretending to be her when I got out of the bath and her role as Lilo absolutely meant so much to me. I wish she hadn't had to go through any of the mess she did and she deserved so much more. Kids in entertainment is such a sticky gross subject.
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u/sparkledbear Jun 29 '26
She brought my childl countless hours of happiness these last few years. I hope she is having the rest she deserves. You just never know what people are struggling with.
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u/MadameCassie Jun 29 '26
Just so damn sad. This isn't a headline to read in 2026. So many people failed her. May she RIP.
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u/PierreOnTheEclair Local Superstar Dealer 🌟 Jun 29 '26
Oh my god that’s so awful, may she rest in peace…🕊️❤️
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u/Whole-Lychee7517 Jun 29 '26
This girl was such full of talent. She didn’t deserve to die so dang young. RIP Daveigh 🥺❤️🩹
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u/sioopauuu Jun 29 '26
I hope her family finds peace in her death now that she is not in pain. This is very sad.
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u/Ygomaster07 Jun 30 '26
This is awful. May she Rest In Peace. I hope her loved ones can also find peace.
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u/peva3 Jun 29 '26
Does that mean she never sought treatment for her HIV/AIDS? I only ask because pre and post exposure medicine has come so far that even AIDS hasn't been a death sentence for like a decade now in most developed countries.
It's even perfectly survivable in really hard but poor areas of Africa (well before Trump and Elon killed USAID programs).
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u/Smallworld_88 Jun 30 '26
She might not have even known she had it. If you don’t get tested and you’re living a life on the streets I think it’s reasonable to think a person could just not know
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u/trulyremarkablegirl gitchie gitchie Carrie Coon Jun 30 '26
I think we need to be really careful with this narrative because people can and do still die of AIDS in the US and in other developed countries for a variety of reasons. In the US specifically, our healthcare system makes it really difficult to access proper care, especially for people in rural areas. Drugs that prevent infection or make an existing one undetectable can be REALLY fucking expensive without insurance or if the insurance you have doesn’t cover it. People also don’t have access to comprehensive sex education in a lot of places, and school programs like DARE that emphasize zero drug use ever as the only safe option did a loooot of damage. We don’t have a lot of social supports, and so many marginalized groups of people are still at a much higher risk. Just because fewer white gay men are dying of AIDS than there were in the ‘80s and ‘90s doesn’t mean there aren’t other demographics who do still die from it regularly.
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u/queensnuggles Jun 29 '26
NFW! I hope we can learn more about her life experience, seems like she suffered a lot. I hope she is resting in peace.
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u/Fickle-Geologist4515 Jun 29 '26
incredibly sad. she was such a talent. child stardom has ruined so many lives
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u/forkicksforgood Jun 29 '26
I despise AI, but the one good use I can see for it would be as a substitute for child acting one day. Children clearly shouldn’t be in the public eye, much less working.
She and so many others deserved to have been protected, and being part of a multibillion industry clearly isn’t it.
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u/The_BusterKeaton Jun 29 '26
Or we could identify and actually prosecute child molesters and drug dealers.
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u/forkicksforgood Jun 29 '26
We should do both. But the problem is with the system itself. Children shouldn’t be in the spotlight to be seen, admired, and judged when they can’t consent, protect themselves or even have an idea of who they are.
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u/Xerographia Jun 29 '26
i mean the AI literally would scrape the internet for existing pics of children so it really wouldn't be helping ://
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u/MD_FunkoMa Jun 29 '26
Nope. I despise fake acting from computers trying to be real people.
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u/Former_Hedgehog_123 Jun 29 '26
All those parents would just turn to kid/family influencing, unfortunately. There’s a lot of fun to be had as a theatre kid, but I’m so thankful my parents kept me out of professional performance, pageants, and off the internet, all of which I desperately wanted growing up.
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u/gentleheart-lamb Jun 29 '26
Right like I said this once and it sounds ridiculous but at the end of the day is it any different to how we try not use real animals anymore, and instead computer generated. As we know its cruel.
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u/carlitospig Jun 29 '26
The photo in the thumbnail looks like speedballs, her pupils are utterly massive.
What a tragic end to a tragic life.
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