{"id":2319522,"date":"2026-03-09T12:25:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2319522"},"modified":"2026-03-09T12:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:25:21","slug":"james-van-der-beeks-9-year-old-daughter-opens-up-on-grief-as-she-shares-heartbreaking-birthday-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/james-van-der-beeks-9-year-old-daughter-opens-up-on-grief-as-she-shares-heartbreaking-birthday-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"James Van Der Beek’s 9-year-old daughter opens up on grief as she shares heartbreaking birthday tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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James Van Der Beek’s daughter has opened up about struggling with grief on his birthday after the actor passed away last month.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Nine-year-old Emilia shared a birthday tribute to her late dad on what would have been his 49th birthday on March 8. <\/p>\n

Van Der Beek<\/a> passed away after battling colorectal cancer.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The Dawson\u2019s Creek <\/em>actor, who was best known for starring in films and TV shows<\/a> like Varsity Blues<\/em>, and The Rules of Attraction<\/em>, died on Tuesday<\/a> February 11 aged 48, having come out publicly about his cancer diagnosis in 2024. <\/p>\n

His family, who had a GoFundMe page set up for them<\/a> following his death, announced the news as they described him as ‘a loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend’. <\/p>\n

Van Der Beek is survived by his six children, and wife Kimberly. <\/p>\n

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James Van Der Beek passed away on 11 February (GoFundMe)<\/cite><\/div>\n

His middle child, Emilia, took to her mom\u2019s Instagram account to mark the occasion, and to also reveal what life has been like since her dad passed. <\/p>\n

In the caption, her mom wrote: \u201cEmilia asked me if she could make a video to post today, walked outside and came back with this. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my stories are a whole lot of photos and some videos. All I want to do is watch videos of him right now with the kids. Thank you for the tremendous heart, love and support for the family. <\/p>\n

\u201cJames… We will celebrate March 8th every day for the rest of our lives.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the clip, Emilia explained: \u201cI know that my dad’s in a good place. He’s not in pain anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAs you will probably know, my dad has passed away,\u201d she said before revealing she wanted to share some advice to help people get \u2018through anybody you love passing.’ <\/p>\n

\u201cSo today is my dad’s birthday, and the number one thing for somebody’s passing is to talk to them and let your emotions out,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you miss them, you can cry. You can talk to them. I talk to my dad every day.\u201d <\/p>\n

The youngster said: \u201cI start with a sentence, and I say, \u2018Hi, Dad. I miss you and I love you so much, and I’ll never stop loving you.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI just tell him about my day, how I’m feeling, and I told my family how I’m feeling. And I know he can hear me, but I can’t hear him.\u201d <\/p>\n

Noting that passed loved ones are \u2018in your heart\u2019 and \u2018watching over you\u2019, she said they\u2019re \u2018in a good place\u2019. <\/p>\n

As for her dad, she said \u2018he’s in heaven above the clouds with God and the Lord.’ <\/p>\n

Later in the clip she revealed she had \u2018stole\u2019 her dad\u2019s hat and it \u2018smells like him\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know that he was a good man. A lot of people loved him, and people prayed for him, and he was loved by … many, many people,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She then went on to thank those who donate to her family\u2019s fund<\/a>, which currently sits at $2,757,409. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.unilad.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Van Der Beek’s daughter has opened up about struggling with grief on his birthday after the actor passed away last month. Nine-year-old Emilia shared a birthday tribute to her late dad on what would have been his 49th birthday on March 8. Van Der Beek passed away after battling colorectal cancer. The Dawson\u2019s Creek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2319523,"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":[25177],"tags":[23383,22367,370386,22271],"class_list":["post-2319522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-cancer","tag-celebrity","tag-colon-cancer","tag-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/James-Van-Der-Beeks-9-year-old-daughter-opens-up-on-grief.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319522","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=2319522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2319524,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319522\/revisions\/2319524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2319523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2319522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2319522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2319522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}