{"id":2495858,"date":"2026-07-10T01:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2495858"},"modified":"2026-07-10T01:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:14:12","slug":"daveigh-chases-friend-amy-castle-breaks-silence-on-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/daveigh-chases-friend-amy-castle-breaks-silence-on-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Daveigh Chase’s Friend Amy Castle Breaks Silence on Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Daveigh Chase<\/strong>\u2019s childhood friend Amy Castle<\/strong> is speaking out for the first time following the former child star\u2019s shocking death at age 35.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that things absolutely could have been different. Whenever I speak to people about it, they go, \u2018It\u2019s so sad, it\u2019s so tragic,\u2019 and I say it is sad, and it is tragic, but also it didn\u2019t have to be this way,\u201d Castle, 36, exclusively told Us Weekly<\/em> on Wednesday, July 8. \u201cI knew her from [age] 9 to 16, and I can tell you with certainty the friend that I knew would never have wanted her life to go the way it went. No way. I don\u2019t have a shadow of a doubt in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase\u2019s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez<\/strong>, confirmed her death<\/a> to TMZ on June 17. Hernandez told the outlet that Chase \u2014 who starred as Samara in The Ring<\/em> and voiced Lilo Pelekai in Disney\u2019s animated film Lilo & Stitch<\/em> \u2014 died the previous day after a battle with meningitis and an infection in her blood that led to sepsis. She was 35.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, Chase\u2019s official cause of death<\/a> was ruled as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) with other significant conditions including chronic polysubstance use, per the County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner records exclusively obtained by Us<\/em>. (Polysubstance use is defined as using more than one drug or substance at the same time or within a short period of time, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>Friends Share Look Inside Daveigh Chase’s Tragic Downward Spiral<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tOn June 17, Cathy Chase learned that her daughter Daveigh Chase had died the previous day at age 35. \u201cI let out this guttural scream,\u201d Cathy told The Daily Mail in an interview, \u201cand I went out into the backyard, and I was screaming, \u2018No, no, no, no!\u2019\u201d At the time, Chase\u2019s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI will say from lived experience, and also from observing and learning and witnessing, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a person on the planet that wakes up and says, \u2018I want to become a drug addict.\u2019 I personally believe that the root cause of addiction is trauma,\u201d Castle continued. \u201cAnd the definition of trauma is something or things, events that happen, and your body and brain don\u2019t know how to make sense of it. It\u2019s something that happens that it\u2019s overwhelming, your body and your brain can\u2019t process as fast as [it\u2019s] happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Castle added that she believes Chase \u201cdid not have the support\u201d she needed. (Chase was reportedly living on the streets in Los Angeles before her death.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that a lot of the time if a person does not have the support needed to process \u2026 that a very understandable coping mechanism can be to compartmentalize or to self-soothe, a lot of times with drugs, [it] can be with food, with sex, with anything that\u2019s going to give your brain dopamine and take you out of what you don\u2019t understand,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Castle also shared that learning that Chase died of AIDS \u201cbrings a lot of emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just got chills,\u201d she told Us<\/em>. \u201cThat is so manageable in 2026. I get very, very angry knowing that that\u2019s how my friend passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase and Castle formed a fast friendship as young actors who shared the same manager when they were starting out in the early 2000s. The pair were close in age and went on auditions together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually attended the premiere of Lilo & Stitch<\/em> with her and her mother,\u201d Castle recalled. \u201cWe were really close, and I remembered back then knowing, \u2018My gosh, this is my best friend,\u2019 because we were also homeschooled [child] actors. That\u2019s a very specific niche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle added that Chase was \u201clike an anchor\u201d for her during that point of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very generous, very kind,\u201d she shared. \u201cI have so many positive, beautiful memories about her, who she was, separate from any of the roles that she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle gushed that Chase had a \u201cnatural\u201d talent for acting and was a \u201cbeaming light of pure spirit\u201d off screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just beautiful and kind, and not jealous. [She was] not a competitive person, which I\u2019m sure that anybody that\u2019s been in this business for any duration of time, it becomes very evident that there is a lot of competition,\u201d she said. \u201cWith that being the world that we were in, and to find her being so genuine and kind, I knew back then that she was a very special person, and [being] that special person is why she worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castle and Chase gradually lost touch over the years with the Passions<\/em> alum revealing that she last saw Chase in person in September 2006 when they ran into each other at Universal City Walk in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Since Chase\u2019s death on June 16, Castle has been working on an initiative called Daveigh\u2019s Law<\/a>, which aims to help young SAG-AFTRA members access support resources,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of Daveigh\u2019s Law is at the same time that you become a SAG-AFTRA member [when] you begin working [in the] union in this business as a minor, you also become part of [a] support [system] where there would be texts and calls and a hotline,\u201d she told Us<\/em>. \u201cSince I have launched this [on] Instagram and purchased the domain name I have been made aware that there are some services that I didn\u2019t even know of that would have been great, not necessarily from SAG itself, but from the Young Arts Academy. I\u2019m thinking, \u2018How great,\u2019 but also I know that Daveigh did not know about any of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is crucial that we bridge the gap between child actor and adult human,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The grassroots effort is still in its early stages, but it\u2019s already gaining momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny kind of substantial change isn\u2019t going to happen overnight. And I\u2019m so 100% committed to this for the long haul, and not just for [Chase], but for every person that started working as a child that didn\u2019t have the support or was not protected,\u201d said Castle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd unfortunately in many cases they were not protected from their own parents. That\u2019s the piece that gets me right in the heart, because children and parents in this business as a whole, there are too many times that parents are living vicariously through their children, wanting success, fame, money, whatever it is. And while I believe most of those parents, when asked, would say that they have their child\u2019s best interest at heart, I believe that they believe that, but I do not believe that it\u2019s really what\u2019s in the best interest of the child.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the days after Chase\u2019s tragic passing, Little House on the Prairie<\/em> star Melissa Gilbert<\/strong> opened up about working with Chase on a TV pilot over 20 years ago. She wrote, in part, \u201cShe was bubbly, sweet and professional. But there was something else there, a push or need to perform \u2026 for her parents. I have been around a lot of child actors, myself included, which makes us all a part of a big multigenerational tribe. As 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether the Big Love<\/em> star received the parenting she needed, Castle recalled, \u201cI will say I saw things that I was not comfortable with. And I wish that more people believed a 12-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the young friends never discussed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never got to talk about it,\u201d she said. \u201cI will say, I was never in a situation with her where I felt that I was in danger or that she was ever in danger. It was more just like situations where parents are not really emotionally attuned to their children\u2019s needs, and as far as I know, that\u2019s not illegal. I just thought at my 12-year-old judgment this should not be going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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