Former child actress Daveigh Chase, who starred as Samara Morgan in the horror film The Ring and voiced Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, recently died at the age of 35. This week, Los Angeles authorities said she died of AIDS, with “chronic polysubstance abuse” listed as a significant contributing condition.
Since news of her death emerged, many online users have criticized her parents for failing, in their view, to protect her from the dangers facing child actors in Hollywood. Her father recently said she had cut ties with him and her mother years earlier, had been homeless and began using drugs when she was 13.
In recent days, a video has resurfaced online that apparently did not attract much attention when it first aired, but now feels especially disturbing in light of recent events. The moment took place at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, where Chase, then 13, won Best Villain for her role in The Ring. She received the award from Ashton Kutcher and Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was then 33 and handed her the award after giving her a kiss on the cheek.
After they left the stage, Diddy spoke with Chase in front of the cameras and asked whether she would be going to an after-party later that night. Chase nodded yes, and Diddy laughed and said, “Yes!” with visible enthusiasm.
It is not clear whether she actually attended the party that night. But the exchange, which may have been viewed at the time as a lighthearted moment, is now being seen in a far more painful and frightening light.
Many social media users pointed out that nothing about the interaction seemed appropriate, from a 33-year-old man presenting an award so closely to a 13-year-old girl to the invitation to join a party later that night.
“Why did they let two men be around her at all? They could have chosen someone her age or an older teenage girl,” one user wrote. Another urged parents: “Please keep your children away from the entertainment industry. These are predators in human form. She’s a child!”
Daveigh Chase, P. Diddy and Ashton Kutcher at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards
(Photo: M. Caulfield/WireImage)
Others expressed sorrow. “Poor girl. Diddy was creepy then just like he is today,” one person wrote. “Seeing this now as an adult is much more disturbing and sick,” another added. “No one that young could handle what she went through. Heartbreaking,” read another comment, echoing many similar reactions.
Representatives for Diddy, who is currently in prison after being convicted of sex offenses and has drawn headlines over the large sex parties he hosted, have previously responded to the clip and dismissed the criticism.
“It’s disappointing to see the media and social media commentators twisting things and making them into something they were not,” they said.
(Photo: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images)
After Chase’s death, her mother, Cathy Chase, told the Daily Mail that her daughter’s decline began several years later, after she was involved in a car accident at 16 and began using powerful painkillers.
“She was looking for drugs and partying with the wrong people,” Cathy said. “She wanted freedom and these people trapped her with drugs. That was the beginning.” She also insisted: “I never kicked my daughter out of the house.”
From 2018, Chase was arrested and jailed several times for offenses that included drug use and breaking into homes. Her mother said she visited her several times in jail.
“She was completely gone, out of her mind,” Cathy said. “I thought something was wrong with her. My daughter was never diagnosed with mental health issues other than PTSD, but the drugs took over.”
(Photo: Jordan Strauss/Getty Images for Bethesda)
Cathy said Daveigh had also expressed a desire to come home, and that she once went to pick her up from jail. “But when I got there, she was never waiting. She went back to the streets and I couldn’t find her.”
The last time she saw her daughter was in 2025, Cathy said. After that, contact was lost. She learned of her death online.
“I hoped they were lies, but then major sites started publishing it,” she said. “I went out to the backyard and screamed, ‘No, no, no, no!’ It hurts me so much, but I hope her soul heard me.”