Daveigh Chase’s mother is opening up about her daughter’s death.
Daveigh, best known for playing and voicing Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, on Wednesday, June 17. In a new interview with the , her mother, Cathy Chase, shared her reaction to Daveigh’s death.
“I actually thought it was fake news, that first time I saw it, and then, but then all of a sudden, it’s all of these different legitimate sites had her name and I realized that it wasn’t fake,” Cathy told the outlet, adding that she last saw Daveigh in 2019.
Credit: Michael Tran/FilmMagic
Cathy also said that she would routinely scroll through various social media platforms and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s website at night, looking for traces of her daughter — including on Tuesday, June 16, just before news of the actress’s death broke.
In that moment, she said, “I was devastated.”
“It felt like something inside of me squeezing all of the air out of me, and at the same time, it felt like I was exploding outwardly,” Cathy told the Daily Mail.
She said she then ran outside.
“I let out this guttural scream and I just was running. And these weird sounds were coming out of me, these kind of, like, primeval sounds,” she told the outlet. “And I went out into the backyard, and I was screaming, ‘No, no, no, no!’ I am in so much pain but I hope her soul heard me.”
Daveigh’s boyfriend Roy Hernandez claimed on that The Ring actress contracted meningitis and “several serious blood infections” and that her condition eventually became “critical.” He also claimed that she had “a difficult childhood and a painful falling out with her family” in the fundraiser, which Daveigh’s former manager and longtime friend John Ryan later urged fans not to donate to.
While speaking with the Daily Mail, Daveigh’s mom claimed that her daughter struggled with addiction. It began after Daveigh took painkillers after injuring her back in a motorcycle accident about a decade ago, according to Cathy. After that, the late actress “was seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people,” her mom claimed to the Daily Mail.
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty
Cathy also said that her daughter struggled with homelessness.
Daveigh launched her career with several starring roles in films like the American dub of Spirited Away, Lilo & Stitch, Donnie Darko and The Ring — the last of which earned her an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. Her final role was in the 2016 film American Romance.
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The last time Cathy — a former nurse who said she moved from Oregon to Los Angeles to support her daughter’s acting career — claims to have seen her daughter was in October 2019 while visiting her in jail. She made plans to pick Daveigh up after her release, but told the Daily Mail that “when I got there, she never waited.”
“I went to pick her up the day after she was released because I didn’t know she was let go early. I can’t stop blaming myself for that. She went back to the streets after she was released,” she told the outlet. After that, Cathy said she lost contact with Daveigh entirely.
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“It upsets me because people are saying I must’ve been a bad mother, but I never gave up on her,” she told the outlet of her late daughter. “As a mother, you don’t give up on your child. I was hoping she would still come home.”
“I never kicked my daughter out,” she continued. Elsewhere in the interview, Cathy said she “tried desperately to try to get [Daveigh] help, but you can’t legally force someone who doesn’t want that help.”
She later identified Daveigh’s remains on Thursday, June 18. Recounting the experience, she told the Daily Mail, “We were able to lay hands and pray. Technically, we were touching the glass, but it’s as close as we could get, so we were able to lay hands and pray for her.”
“It was a beautiful experience, and, I feel very blessed, too, have been able to share that with my daughter,” Cathy said.