Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert just issued an urgent plea after former child actress Daveigh Chase‘s cause of death was revealed.
On June 16, Chase—known for voicing Lilo in the 2002 animated Disney film Lilo & Stitch and starring in The Ring (also 2002)—died at 35. Her official cause of death was revealed as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with contributing conditions like chronic polysubstance use, according to a Los Angeles County Medical Examiner report obtained by People.
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The same day that Chase’s cause of death was announced, Gilbert, 62, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the original TV series, took to Instagram with an important message.
“This is the @daveighchase.official I knew,” she wrote alongside a photo of the actress as a child. “I shot a pilot for a series with her 20+ years ago. Two wonderful humans @thejackcoleman and @kevinzegers1984 played my husband and son, respectively. I 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…for her parents.”
Gilbert continued, “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’ve also been around a lot of stage parents. Many child actors grow up just fine, whether they stay in ‘the business’ or not. That is 100% due to really solid, wise parenting.”
Although the When Calls the Heart star acknowledged that “child stardom, in itself, is not a guarantee of dysfunction,” she pointed out that parents can make all the difference.
“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’s where the trouble begins,” Gilbert warned. “It 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 actor[s]. For most, it goes away, and when that happens, it not only devastates the child, but it turns the whole family upside down.
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Additionally, Gilbert said she was “truly heartbroken” to read the circumstances surrounding Chase’s death.
“I certainly understand substance addiction disorder, but this sweet girl’s death is so much more,” she speculated. “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.”
Gilbert encouraged them to take their child to an accountant regularly, make sure acting/singing is “something the child really wants,” and to “be sure that that child has a life outside of the industry that is thriving and full of friends and responsibilities and ‘normal’ things.”
To conclude her PSA, the former child actress wrote, “I would also ask that these parents memorize this sweet girl’s face and her story so that it never happens again.”
Gilbert was 9 when she was cast as Laura in Little House in the Prairie. The historical drama series aired for nine seasons from 1974 to 1983.
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