On July 6th, 2019, Cameron Boyce passed away in his sleep following a seizure.
He was only 20 years old.
He left behind a legion of adoring fans, friends, and famous collaborators, many of whom spoke
of his sterling character.
Best known for his work on the Disney Channel, Cameron Boyce starred in the sitcom Jessie
alongside Debby Ryan for four years, from 2011 to 2015.
The same year Jessie ended, he played Cruella de Vil's son Carlos in the Disney Channel's
TV movie Descendants.
"Hold on now.
Maybe good really is more powerful than evil."
The film was an instant success, and the sequel drew a whopping 21 million viewers across
6 networks, according to Deadline.
He'll also be featured in Descendents 3, which is set to premiere on August 2nd, 2019.
Boyce had started taking on more adult roles, like his turn in the upcoming indie thriller
Runt.
He'll also appear in the upcoming HBO comedy Mrs. Fletcher, starring Kathryn Hahn.
In a statement, Hahn told People:
"Cameron was a beautiful person who showed in the brief time our paths crossed a deep
generosity and decency that belied his 20 years of age."
And it's true: Boyce was so much more than your average Disney Channel star.
He always sought to lead with compassion and leaves behind a legacy of charity work.
In 2008, Cameron Boyce worked with pop rockers Panic!
At The Disco, just a few years after the breakout hit "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" catapulted
the band into fame.
According to CNN, Boyce was just eight years old when he appeared in the music video for
"That Green Gentleman."
It was his first major acting credit.
While casual fans might not recognize Boyce in the video, Panic!'s super stans certainly
did…and they never let the Disney Channel star forget it.
Boyce told Crookes magazine:
"I actually hadn't heard of [Panic!] when I got cast, and I still get hate because of
it!
Panic! fans are real fans.
It's funny, a lot of times they'll comment on my pictures and tell me how lucky I was
to be in their presence."
Following Boyce's death, Panic!
At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie said:
"You need to feel sad.
You're feeling sad about losing Cameron Boyce, you need to feel sad about it."
2008 was also the year Boyce starred alongside Kiefer Sutherland in the horror flick Mirrors,
as well as the thriller Eagle Eye with Shia LaBeouf.
A little-known fact: Boyce even dove into the steamy world of soap operas early on in
his career.
He scored a role on the soap spin-off, General Hospital: Night Shift, but the series ended
after Boyce filmed just seven episodes.
Cameron Boyce had been working with Disney ever since his role on General Hospital: Night
Shift on Disney-owned network ABC.
But he got his first taste of real stardom in 2011…and it's all thanks to his future
Jessie co-star Debby Ryan.
"Okay, here are the smoke bombs."
"For your Gotcha Day, we're getting you a label maker."
Ryan was the driving force behind Jessie.
In September 2017, the star posted a series of tweets in which she explained:
"I got to pitch, produce, and cast my dream job right outta high school with special folks."
That made her Disney's youngest female director and producer.
Before landing the role of Luke Ross, Boyce had only appeared on the Disney Channel for
small, one-off roles in shows like Good Luck Charlie.
In an interview with YSBnow, he admitted that meeting Ryan for the first time was a major
moment for him:
"That was like really cool to just like see her and then know that okay, now it's real."
Thus began Boyce's long-term relationship with the Disney Channel, which ultimately
resulted in his most recognizable starring role: playing Cruella de Vil's son in Descendants.
Cameron Boyce's unique look afforded him the opportunity to take on a number of roles.
According to Teen Vogue, his biracial background let him shift from playing the son of Salma
Hayek, who is Latinx, to the son of Wendy Raquel Robinson, who is black.
He also played the son of Michelle Monaghan, who is white.
He was always proud of his heritage, but he admitted that it made landing a lead role
more difficult.
In an interview with RAW, the star opened up about his black and Jewish heritage, which
he calls "bl-ewish".
It was clear he loved the features it gave him, down to the very last freckle.
As he explained:
"As a kid, I always sort of liked the fact that I didn't look like everybody else."
Cameron Boyce and Karan Brar might have only played siblings on television, but the pair
also formed a real-life brotherly bond.
"Wow, Ravi, you were really haulin' it out there!
Run like that and you'll do fine in the 50 yard dash."
"And that was in my walking-around sandals."
In 2019, they even moved in together, along with fellow Disney alumni Sophie Reynolds.
But the actors' relationship went far beyond merely being roommates.
Boyce and Brar clearly made an effort to never be apart for the big moments.
In 2017, Boyce flew halfway around the world to celebrate Brar's 18th birthday with him
in Australia, writing in an Instagram post:
"So glad I was with you to watch you dramatically walk into adulthood.
Happy birthday Karan.
The world is yours."
According to Just Jared Jr., Brar returned the favor and flew to Vancouver in 2018 for
Boyce's 19th birthday.
And when Brar turned 20 in 2019, the pair met up in New York, and Boyce shared the most
heartfelt Instagram message imaginable.
"I love this man...He’s been a constant in a life that I literally couldn’t picture
without him.
Kar you’re 20!!...Feels old right now, but by the time my kids are calling you 'Uncle
Kar' we’ll laugh and probably realize we’re still bs'ing our way through this stuff hahahahah
happy birthday.
I love you."
Following Boyce's untimely death, Brar wrote a touching tribute to his friend on Instagram:
"you were the greatest thing to have ever happened to me.
i love you so much cam. wish i had more to say right now but i don’t think words will
come for a while.
thank you to everyone who sent such kind words my way.
know i haven’t been responding but it truly means a lot."
Hanging around A-listers is just business as usual when you're a celebrity…but Cameron
Boyce definitely felt more like a mega-fan after landing the role of Adam Sandler's son
in the 2010 comedy Grown Ups.
He told Young Hollywood:
"The first person I was actually starstruck over was Adam Sandler when I was nine years
old."
"I knew of him very well.
A nine-year-old likes their fart jokes.
So, he's good at those."
In an interview with Crookes Magazine, Boyce admitted that working with Sandler taught
him how to roll with the punches.
The comedian reportedly only used the script as, quote, "a mere suggestion."
That meant Boyce had to learn to adapt.
Boyce clearly left an impact on Sandler, too.
The comedian shared a heartbreaking statement on Twitter after the news of Boyce's death
hit headlines:
"Too young.
Too sweet.
Too funny.
Just the nicest, most talented, and most decent kid around.
Loved that kid.
Cared so much about his family.
Cared so much about the world.
Thank you, Cameron, for all you gave us."
Many child actors fall into a dangerous cliche of DUIs and drug arrests.
Boyce's parents didn't want him to go down that path, so they made every effort to keep
his life as normal as humanly possible.
The star told Schön!
Magazine that he doesn't have any memories from when he was, quote, "just a normal kid."
But he did go to a real high school, and he ended up graduating with honors.
"I was lucky enough to be surrounded by adults who didn't want to see me turn into the stereotype...My
parents were hesitant about me pursuing my career at one point because they were aware
of the pattern that took so many child actors hostage.
As I grew, I developed a knack for recognizing ugly traits found in the industry."
Disney Channel stardom is pretty much instantaneous.
You land a role on a hit show or one of those infamous Disney Channel Original Movies, and
your name is suddenly splashed across the pages of all the teenybopper magazines.
Hollywood obviously has a pronounced dark side, and Boyce initially struggled with his
enormous success.
In an interview with i-D, Boyce opened up about his first year of stardom.
He struggled with the idea of constantly being bombarded with cameras and fans.
In order to cope, he decided to just avoid the whole thing altogether.
As he told i-D,
"For about a year of my life, if I didn't have to leave my house, I wouldn't.
It was a bad way of dealing with fame, but it's a scary feeling to know that everybody
is looking at you all the time."
Thankfully, Boyce found his way out of the darkness and decided to use his success to
boost the profile of his charity work.
Cameron Boyce's first ever job was working as a model in a Disney print ad.
"I was a pretty cute kid.
I don't know what happened to me."
During the shoot, Boyce used his background as a dancer to nail a mid-air split for the
camera.
He told Young Hollywood it was, quote, "the craziest photo."
And he admitted that he was still regularly tagged in the picture on Instagram.
It turns out dancing was the actor's very first love.
In an interview with Schön!
Magazine, Boyce opened up about his passion for dance.
The star even had a break dance troupe called X Mob, but for some reason, he unexpectedly
fell into a career as an actor instead.
As he explained it:
"[Dancing] was my first true passion and what really showed me the values of creative freedom,
and surrounding yourself with people who have a similar drive and love for the same things
you do.
Dancing will forever be a passion of mine.
It was instilled in me at such an early age and celebrated so frequently."
Cameron Boyce was such a versatile performer he could easily go from playing Cruella de
Vil's kid in Descendants 3 to starring as Cal in the violent thriller Runt.
And he reportedly used method acting as part of the process when diving deep into his grittier
characters.
In fact, he ended up completely isolating himself while preparing for his role in Runt,
a film that doesn't have a release date as of the making of this video.
In an interview with Dazed, he explained the unique challenges of the role, saying that:
"[It had the] complicated nuance of traumatic childhood events."
In other words, he had to pull from somewhere darker.
As he explained it:
"Because the kid is so isolated and because I'm so family-oriented, a week or so before
we started shooting I warned [my family], like 'hey guys I'm gonna be ignoring you for
a month and a half, completely.'"
And it sounds like things got pretty intense.
"I started to sort of detach myself from things, I didn't talk to my best friends for a month
and a half.
I isolated myself the same way the character does.
That allowed me to sit with my thoughts and understand where this kid is coming from."
After discovering the dark side of fame, the same side that made him not want to leave
his house for a year, Cameron Boyce decided to use his celebrity status for the greater
good.
The Disney star teamed up with the Thirst Project, a charity that helps bring clean
drinking water to underdeveloped countries.
"The Thirst Project is the world's largest youth water organization.
We're a movement of students looking to end the water crisis."
According to Haute Living, he raised more than $30,000 to build two wells in Swaziland.
He later won the Pioneering Spirit Award at the 9th Annual Thirst Gala for bringing attention
to the Global Water Crisis.
He even had the opportunity to meet Joe Biden at the 2019 Biden Courage Awards.
Following his untimely death, Biden paid tribute to Boyce in a tweet:
"I had the opportunity to meet Cameron Boyce at this year’s Courage Awards and through
his work with [the social movement] It's On Us.
He was filled with so much light and served as a tremendous role model for young people."
Boyce comes from a long line of activists and humanitarians.
In fact, his grandmother, Jo Ann Boyce, was part of the Clinton 12.
"The Clinton 12 was the first group of black students to be integrated into an all-white
high school."
"We deserved to go to that school because it was our school as well as the kids who
were white."
According to Dazed, his mother was a social worker when the AIDS epidemic first began.
She later shifted her focus to helping the homeless.
Boyce hoped to follow in his family's footsteps, and he wanted his philanthropy to be the legacy
he left behind.
While accepting the Pioneering Spirit award at the 9th annual Thirst Gala in 2018, Boyce
said:
"We need to use our resources and what we have.
We're all in here wearing suits.
We need to use what we have to make the world a better place for other people."
Rest in peace, Cameron Boyce.
You are truly gone too soon.