Davey Chase, a former child actor known for his roles in “Rings” and “Lilo & Stitch,” has died. She was 35 years old.
Chase’s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, said Chase died Tuesday after suffering from meningitis and a blood infection, as well as sepsis problems that caused her body to fail.
TMZ first reported the news.
According to the newspaper, Chase was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital earlier this month due to malnutrition.
A representative for Chase did not respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
She rose to fame at a young age when she won the lead role of Lilo in the 2002 Disney movie Lilo & Stitch. He also appeared in the same TV series again.
Before she broke out, she played the role of Chihiro Ogino in the American dub of “Spirited Away.”
Also in 2002, she won the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for her unforgettable performance as Samara Morgan in the horror classic The Ring.
In 2024, a clip resurfaced of an awkward confrontation between the actress and Diddy at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, where he asked then-12-year-old Chase, “Are you coming to the afterparty tonight?”
In 2006, she had a recurring role as Rhonda Vollmer on HBO’s Big Love. She appeared 32 times throughout the show’s five seasons.
Her other credits include “Donnie Darko,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” “Beethoven’s Fifth”, “ER” and “Mercy.”
However, her on-screen appearances ended after starring in American Romance in 2016.
“I just want to make things that I love and that people respect,” Chase previously said of his career in a 2009 interview.
“I want to do something that will change someone’s life, but not something that will be forgotten tomorrow.”
After playing his final role, Chase stepped away from the spotlight and kept a low profile. Her last Instagram post, shared in 2017, showed her artfully posing with a unicorn balloon.
“Unicorns do exist 😻,” she captioned the post.
In recent months, the actress was said to be living on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. John Ryan, Chase’s manager for more than a decade, told the newspaper exclusively that he and Chase’s sister-in-law, Gaia Brown, enlisted the help of a private investigator to track her down and get help about a year ago.
In late 2025, Ryan said he learned of a video that purportedly showed Chase, incredibly thin, struggling on Skid Row.
Shortly before her death, a GoFundMe was set up by her boyfriend to help Chase “find solace and peace” in her final days.
“My girlfriend Davey Chase has always been the light of my life. She is known to many as a talented child actor who starred in ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Spirited Away,’ ‘Donnie Darko,’ and more. But behind the scenes, she has faced more than her share of hardships,” the campaign reads.
“After a difficult childhood and painful conflicts with her family, Davey was bullied and struggled to find safety and happiness in downtown LA. When we met, I promised to protect her and give her the love and comfort she deserved. Together we found a moment of happiness and hope.”
“All she wanted was a place where we could live together, feel safe, and be happy. Now, more than ever, I want to give her a sense of home and peace in her final days,” Hernandez wrote.
