“She was not very Hollywood. She’d rather eat at Bob’s Big Boy and go home with the cats. She loved acting but wasn’t into the fame scene.”
Daveigh Chase retired from acting fulltime in 2015. Photo / Getty Images
Chase gained widespread recognition voicing Lilo in the 2002 animated hit Lilo & Stitch, a role she later reprised in the franchise’s television spin-offs. Before that breakthrough, she voiced Chihiro in the English-language version of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.
However, in her later years, the Hollywood dream was marked by struggle.
Reports from multiple outlets say the actor was living on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles before her death, with some outlets showing an unverified image of a skeletal woman, purporting to be Chase, lying in a tent.
A GoFundMe was set up before her death by Roy Hernandez, a man who said he was her boyfriend. On the page, he wrote the actor was suffering complications from an infection in her bloodstream.
The page was raising money “to give her that sense of home and peace in her final days”.
Hernandez described Chase as being “a light in my life”.
“But behind the scenes, she’s faced more than her share of hardship. After a difficult childhood and a painful falling out with her family, Daveigh was bullied and struggled to find safety and happiness in downtown LA,” Hernandez said.
However, Ryan told the California Post the fundraiser was wrong.
Daveigh Chase found fame after she voiced the lead role of Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch. Photo / Walt Disney
“Apparently, a man claiming to be her ‘boyfriend’ that none of us friends or her family has heard of has set up a GoFundMe on ‘her and her family’s behalf’ [and] he set her up as the organiser.” Ryan said there was already a trust account set up to cover costs.
As of writing, the fund had raised US$3900 ($6730).