The statement said: “Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning.<\/p>\n
“He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come.<\/p>\n
“For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”<\/p>\n
![\"Van](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/skynews-james-van-der-beek_7162575.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Van Der Beek pictured in November, 2024, in Los Angeles. Pic: AP<\/p>\n
Van Der Beek shot to fame through Dawson’s Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003, following a group of high school friends.<\/p>\n
Then 20, he played 15-year-old Dawson Leery along with the show’s other stars Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson. It was hugely popular, turning Van Der Beek into a household name in the US and UK, where it was shown on terrestrial TV.<\/p>\n
He also starred in the film, Varsity Blues, in which he played Jonathan ‘Mox’ Moxon, the backup quarterback of a high school football team.<\/p>\n
‘He will always be family to me’<\/p>\n
He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.<\/p>\n
Tributes were paid to Van Der Beek immediately after the news.<\/p>\n
His Dancing With The Stars partner, Emma Slater, who appeared with him on the show in 2019, said: “I’m so devastated.<\/p>\n
“He is and will always be family to me. Love you so much James. The man that you are, you can be proud of.<\/p>\n
“So grateful that I got to be there to say goodbye to you.”<\/p>\n
‘I am broken’<\/p>\n
Actor and close friend, Alfonso Ribeiro, who starred in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, said: “I am broken. So happy to have him in my life. Lucky I got to be there to say goodbye.”<\/p>\n
Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance at a Dawson’s Creek reunion charity event, in September, in New York. He had previously dropped out due to illness.<\/p>\n
He appeared projected on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre during a live reading of the show’s pilot episode, to benefit F Cancer.<\/p>\n
Read more: Van Der Beek said: “Thank you to every single person here.”<\/p>\n Van Der Beek was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, and began acting aged 13 after suffering concussion playing football, which prevented him playing for a year on doctor’s orders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Van Der Beek, the star of Dawson’s Creek and Varsity Blues, has died at the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-293066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Gwyneth Paltrow leads tributes to designer Valentino<\/a>
Anthony Joshua pays tribute to friends killed in Nigeria crash<\/a><\/p>\n