{"id":2280866,"date":"2026-02-13T18:23:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2280866"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:23:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:23:30","slug":"james-van-der-beek-remembered-by-dawsons-creek-costars-and-more-celebrities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/james-van-der-beek-remembered-by-dawsons-creek-costars-and-more-celebrities\/","title":{"rendered":"James Van Der Beek remembered by \u2018Dawson\u2019s Creek\u2019 costars and more celebrities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Stars of Dawson\u2019s Creek are paying tribute to James Van Der Beek following his death.<\/p>\n<p>The 48-year-old actor, who is known for playing the show\u2019s titular character, Dawson Leery, died Wednesday morning following a battle with colorectal cancer.<\/p>\n<p>His family shared the news on his official Instagram page. He is survived by his wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, and their six children.<\/p>\n<p>Upon the news of his death, actors who starred alongside Van Der Beek in the hit WB teen drama, including Katie Holmes, Mary-Margaret Humes and Busy Philipps, took to social media to remember the actor.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes shared a photo of a handwritten letter to Van Der Beek on <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DUplHUFgemh\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram<\/a>, captioning the photo, \u201cI formed some words with a heavy heart. This is a lot to process. I am so grateful to have shared in a piece of James\u2019 journey. He is beloved. Kimberly, we love you and will be here always for you and your beautiful children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Philipps, who portrayed Audrey Liddell,\u00a0wrote in her <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DUoddB8jsSC\/?hl=en&amp;img_index=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">social media<\/a> tribute: \u201cMy heart is deeply hurting for all of us today\u2026every person who knew James and loved him, anyone who loved his work or had the pleasure of meeting him, all of his dear friends and community that surrounded him as he battled this illness, especially his parents and brother and sister.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She went on to say\u00a0she is \u201cheartbroken\u201d for Van Der Beek\u2019s wife and children, and urged others to help them out via their GoFundMe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJames Van Der Beek was one in a billion and he will be forever missed and i don\u2019t know what else to say,\u201d she added. \u201ci am just so so sad. He was my friend and i loved him and i\u2019m so grateful for our friendship all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Humes, who played Van Der Beek\u2019s TV mom in the show, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DUosCfjkmYg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared photos<\/a> of herself with Van Der Beek and wrote she is at a \u201closs for words.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJames, my gracious warrior, you fought a hard battle against all odds with such quiet strength and dignity,\u201d she captioned the post on Instagram. \u201cI will always love and admire you for that. Our last conversations \u2026 merely a few days ago \u2026 are forever sitting softly in my heart for safe keeping. To our extended Dawson\u2019s Creek family of friends \u2026 please be respectful of our silences at the moment as Beautiful Kimberly and family have asked for peaceful privacy for now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The official Instagram page for Dawson\u2019s Creek via Sony Pictures also addressed Van Der Beek\u2019s death and remembered the actor for his iconic role as Leery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the passing of James Van Der Beek,\u201d the show said. \u201cHis iconic portrayal of Dawson Leery helped define a generation of television for fans and continues to resonate with audiences today. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, stars across Hollywood began paying tribute to Van Der Beek and took to the comments section of his Instagram post to remember him, including Sarah Michelle Gellar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so sad for your beautiful family,\u201d Gellar commented on Van Der Beek\u2019s Instagram post. \u201cWhile James legacy will always live on, this is a huge loss to not just your family but the world. F*** cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ruralradio.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stars of Dawson\u2019s Creek are paying tribute to James Van Der Beek following his death. The 48-year-old actor, who is known for playing the show\u2019s titular character, Dawson Leery, died Wednesday morning following a battle with colorectal cancer. His family shared the news on his official Instagram page. He is survived by his wife, Kimberly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2280867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2280866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/James-Van-Der-Beek-remembered-by-\u2018Dawsons-Creek-costars-and.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2280866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2280868,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280866\/revisions\/2280868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2280866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2280866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2280866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}