{"id":526598,"date":"2026-06-30T22:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526598\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:46:17","slug":"melissa-gilbert-on-daveigh-chases-death-cautions-stage-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526598\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Gilbert on Daveigh Chase’s Death, Cautions Stage Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMelissa Gilbert said she is \u201ctruly heartbroken\u201d by the death of Daveigh Chase<\/a> and as a former child star herself, is urging parents to think carefully about what their children want when it comes to acting.<\/p>\n

\n\tChase died on June 16 at age 35, with the Los Angeles Medical Examiner ruling that she died of AIDS. Chronic polysubstance use, or the repeated use of more than one drug or substance at the during over a period of time, was listed under \u201cother significant conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilbert, who was a child actress herself \u2014 famously starring as Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie \u2014 said she worked with a young Chase for \u201ca couple of days\u201d some 20-plus years ago on a pilot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is the Daveigh Chase I knew,\u201d Gilbert wrote in a caption to a photo of Chase as a child in braided pigtails. \u201cI only worked with Daveigh a couple of days but I could see she was bright both in countenance and in mind. She was bubbly, sweet and professional. But there was something else there, a push or need to perform \u2026for her parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilbert said that given her professional background, she has been around many child actors. \u201cAs a consequence, I\u2019ve also been around a lot of stage parents. Many child actors grow up just fine, whether they stay in \u2018the business\u2019 or not. That is 100% due to really solid, wise parenting. Child stardom, in itself, is not a guarantee of dysfunction,\u201d She said. \u201cHowever, when a parent or parents lose sight of who THEY are, of what their true responsibility is, and their lives revolve solely around their little star child, well, that\u2019s where the trouble begins.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt takes strong parenting to handle all that comes with it. The terrible part is, that so few child actors continue on to have careers as actors,\u201d she added. \u201cFor most, it goes away, and when that happens it not only devastates the child but it turns the whole family upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tIn light of the tragic cricumstances surrounding Chase\u2019s death, Gilbert cautioned stage parents to be certain that acting is what their child wants. \u201cToday, reading the circumstances of Daveigh\u2019s death, I\u2019m truly heartbroken,\u201d she said. \u201cI certainly understand substance addiction disorder but this sweet girl\u2019s death is so much more. If I had the chance to speak to any parents who were thinking about getting their children in the industry I would tell them to please, please make sure that they are doing it for the right reasons. That they will take the child to an accountant regularly so that he or she knows exactly what he or she is making, and where it is going.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTo be sure it\u2019s something the child really wants. To be sure that that child has a life outside of the industry that is thriving and full of friends and responsibilities and \u2018normal\u2019 things,\u201d she concluded. \u201cI would also ask that these parents memorize this sweet girl\u2019s face and her story so that it never happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melissa Gilbert said she is \u201ctruly heartbroken\u201d by the death of Daveigh Chase and as a former child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,904],"class_list":["post-526598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526598","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=526598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}