The voice of Lilo Pelekai is gone.
Daveigh Chase passed away this week from septic shock and organ failure at the age of 35. She had been hospitalized for meningitis and bloodstream infections. Her death has been met with grief from across the entertainment community, and among the responses that have landed hardest is the tribute posted to Instagram by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, the directors of the original Lilo & Stitch.
The image they shared showed Stitch sitting alone on a rock, holding a sandwich and a doll, wiping tears from his face while looking at a fish in the water. No caption was necessary. Anyone who has seen the film understood immediately what the image meant and why they chose it.
Chase was 35. She was enormously talented. And she is gone far too young.
Her Career and What She Built
As stated by Daily Breifs on X, “💔Daveigh Chase Dies at 35
#DaveighChase, voice of Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch & Samara in The Ring , has died in Los Angeles
Reports say meningitis led to sepsis
She also appeared in Donnie Darko, HBO’s Big Love, & voiced Chihiro in Spirited Away🕊️”
💔Daveigh Chase Dies at 35#DaveighChase, voice of Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch & Samara in The Ring , has died in Los Angeles
Reports say meningitis led to sepsis
She also appeared in Donnie Darko, HBO’s Big Love, & voiced Chihiro in Spirited Away🕊️#RIP #ぐるナイ #ฟารีดา pic.twitter.com/FqFwVyiwkm
— Daily Briefs (@Daily_Briefs_) June 18, 2026
The first was Lilo Pelekai in Lilo & Stitch. Released in 2002, the film follows Lilo and her older sister Nani as they navigate life together after losing their parents. When Lilo adopts what she believes is a stray dog from a local shelter, she names him Stitch and the bond that develops between them becomes the heart of the film. Stitch is not a dog. He is Experiment 626, an engineered alien creation designed by the scientist Jumba Jookiba specifically to cause chaos and destruction. The film is about what happens when something made to break things learns, through love, to hold them together instead.
The character of Stitch had existed long before the film. Sanders had been developing the idea as part of a children's book project since 1981, but that project never came to publication. The concept was later revived when Walt Disney Feature Animation began seeking new material. In 1997, studio president Thomas Schumacher invited Sanders to develop it into an animated feature. Lilo & Stitch arrived in theaters five years later and found an audience that has never quite let go of it.
Chase's voice gave Lilo her particular combination of qualities, the loneliness, the eccentricity, the stubborn love that refuses to give up on anyone. The performance is the reason the character works.
The second role Chase is best remembered for is Samara Morgan in The Ring. Released in the same year as Lilo & Stitch, Gore Verbinski's film is an American remake of the Japanese horror film Ringu, which itself was adapted from the novel Ring by Koji Suzuki. In the film, a cursed videotape sends everyone who watches it a phone call informing them they will die in seven days. The only way to survive is to copy the tape and show it to someone else.
Chase played Samara, the young girl whose spirit is responsible for the curse. The performance is the opposite of Lilo in every way except for the commitment Chase brought to it. Samara became one of the defining horror images of the early 2000s, a presence so genuinely disturbing that it has remained culturally embedded more than two decades later.
The film also starred Naomi Watts as Rachel Keller, David Dorfman as Aiden Keller, Martin Henderson as Noah Clay, Amber Tamblyn as Katie Embry, and Rachael Bella as Becca Kotler.
Two iconic performances. Two completely different genres. Both released in the same year. That is a remarkable thing to look back on.
The Tribute From Sanders and DeBlois
The directors of Lilo & Stitch did not write a lengthy statement. They shared a single image: Stitch sitting on a rock, alone, with a sandwich and a doll, wiping tears from his face and looking at a fish in the water below him.
View this post on Instagram
It is the right tribute for the film it comes from. Lilo & Stitch was always, at its core, a story about grief and about the strange and specific comfort that can be found in unexpected places. Lilo is a child learning to live with loss. Stitch is a creature that was built for destruction and discovers, slowly and painfully, what it means to belong somewhere. The bond between them is the film's whole argument.
Stitch crying quietly on a rock is Stitch experiencing loss. For everyone who understood what that character went through in the film, and what Chase's voice gave to the other half of that friendship, the image needs no explanation.
What Her Legacy Means for the Disney Experience
Lilo & Stitch has maintained a steady presence in Disney's parks for years, and the 2025 live-action remake has brought the characters back into active conversation with a new generation of audiences. Character meet-and-greet experiences, themed merchandise, and resort-wide programming have kept Lilo and Stitch visible at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in ways that reflect how deeply the story has stayed with its audience.
For guests who encounter those characters during a park visit, whether for the first time or as a return to something from their childhood, Chase's voice performance is the original foundation. The Lilo that families fell in love with, and that Stitch's own story depends on being worthy of, was built on what Chase brought to that recording booth.
The live-action remake draws on that legacy even as it builds its own. For guests who want to return to the source, the original animated film is the place to start, and Chase's performance is the reason it holds up.
If you have a memory of her work that you want to share, whether it is the moment Lilo and Stitch first understood each other or a memory of seeing The Ring for the first time and not sleeping afterward, leave a comment. She deserves to be remembered and talked about.
