Daveigh Chase’s friend is remembering the good times they shared in the wake of her unexpected death.
“She was just special. Everyone I know would say the exact same thing – she was beautiful and cool and she was that cool girl who doesn’t exist anymore,” a source who was once close to Chase exclusively tells Us Weekly of the late actress. “She was cool before influencers. She was not trying, she was just cool. She was effortless. She was the kind of girl that everyone wanted to know.”
The friend, who asked not to be named, met Chase in 2009 while out in Hollywood.
“I thought she was a cool, hot girl. And I asked, ‘Can I get a photo of you?’ That’s how it started,” the friend recalls. “Later on someone told me she was Daveigh, the girl in The Ring.”
After connecting, Chase and the source grew close after learning they “had a lot of mutual friends.”
“She would always bring out new people. She was the kind of person if she met a new friend she would bring them out,” the friend tells Us. “She was gracious and always sharing.”
The source adds that Chase was “so cool” and “nice to everyone” she met.
As the friend continued to get to know Chase, they recall that the actress “never talked about work” or her previous success.
“She never talked about The Ring or Lilo and Stitch. She wasn’t that kind of person,” the source tells Us, adding that Chase “worked on a couple small films here and there but never talked about acting or retiring.”
The source shares that they “never saw” Chase “struggling” personally.
“She was just having fun when we hung out,” they reflect. “She partied like any other young girl her age in Hollywood. I wouldn’t say she partied any more or less than anyone else.”
The friend admits that they and Chase “naturally lost touch” over the years, adding that around 2015 was the last time the pair had spent time together. The source shares they learned from mutual friends that Chase was struggling with her housing situation.
“People really loved her and cared about her and offered her help,” the source says. “If you talked to anyone, everyone asked about her and worried about her and cared about her.”
However, Chase allegedly declined her friends’ help. The source also adds they attempted to look for Chase while she was unhoused but was ultimately unsuccessful.
“If I ever met anyone on the street, I would ask about her and if they knew her and no one ever did,” the source says.
Earlier this month, Chase’s boyfriend Roy Hernandez confirmed that the Lilo & Stitch actress died at age 35. Chase died following a battle of meningitis and an infection in her blood that led to sepsis.
