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James Van Der Beek, the actor best known for playing the lead in hit 90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, has died.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith and grace,” reads a statement shared on Van Der Beek’s official Instagram page on Wednesday.
“There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend.”
In November 2024, Van Der Beek revealed that he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer as he prepared to appear on US charity TV special, The Real Full Monty. Based on the classic UK movie The Full Monty, the show saw a group of celebrities strip off to raise awareness of cancer. In November 2025, Van Der Beek revealed plans to auction off memorabilia and the ‘treasures’ he kept from working on his TV shows and films to fund his cancer treatment.
Born in Connecticut in 1977, Van Der Beek initially preferred sports to the arts, until a childhood football accident left him with severe concussion. Doctors advised him not to play sport for a year, so soon after that he turned his attention to acting and was cast as the lead, Danny Zuko, in a school production of Grease.
Van Der Beek shot to fame in 1998 as Dawson Leery, the teenage film buff who was as obsessed with Steven Spielberg as he was with his neighbour and lifelong crush, Joey Potter (played by Katie Holmes). Later that year, he was voted one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People in the World. On the 25th anniversary of the show starting, Van Der Beek wrote: “Twenty-five years ago today, my life changed. Not gradually, not day-by-day … instantly. It was the culmination of five years of auditioning, hundreds of hours on stage, thousands of hours travelling, preparing, dreaming, hoping, hearing ‘no’ and making up reasons to keep going. But the shift was overnight.”
The intense pressures of celebrity proved difficult to cope with given his youth. After Dawson’s Creek became a smash hit, he said in an interview: “Walking around at that time was very tricky because one autograph could turn into a mob scene. So I walked around in fear of teenage girls.”
For years after the show ended, Van Der Beek was plagued by people asking whether there were plans to do a Dawson’s Creek reunion show or film. In 2017, he said: “I felt pretty complete putting that one on the shelf and not looking at him again.” But not long after he announced his cancer diagnosis, a charity reunion was set in motion with Van Der Beek and former co-stars Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson attached. However, health issues meant that Van Der Beek was unavailable on the day – so Lin-Manuel Miranda stepped in to take the role of Dawson.
Van Der Beek also appeared in movies including American football teen flick Varsity Blues, in which he starred opposite Paul Walker, and in the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction, in which he played drug dealer Sean Bateman – younger brother of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman – caught up in a love triangle. He increasingly played tongue-in-cheek roles: he tried to climb into a bedroom window in the 2000 horror parody Scary Movie as the Dawson’s Creek theme tune I Don’t Want to Wait played, before declaring “Wrong set”. He was later cast as a meta version of himself in Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, for which he was nominated for a Teen Choice award for male scene stealer in 2012. He also did multiple skits for the comedy site Funny or Die, including one called Vandermemes that riffed on him going viral for his so-called “ugly cry face”.
Fellow teen idols, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chad Michael Murray, were among those who immediately paid tribute to the actor on social media. “I’m so sad for your beautiful family,” Gellar commented on the post. “While James’ legacy will always live on, this is a huge loss to not just your family but the world. Fuck Cancer.”
Murray wrote: “Sending love and light to your beautiful family. James was a giant. We’re so so so sorry for what you’re going through. His words, art and humanity inspired all of us- he inspired us to be better in all ways. God bless you guys.”
On Instagram, the actor Paul Walter Hauser posted an image of the money he helped raise for Van Der Beek’s cancer treatment, along with the message: “Love you, James. I know you’re in Heaven being pampered with love. The Van Der Beeks will be in our daily prayers and we’ll be drumming up some money to support your beautiful family. Thanks for the body of work and for being one of the good guys.”
Roger Avary, the Canadian-American filmmaker who directed Van Der Beek in The Rules of Attraction, praised the actor and friend as “a pillar of strength to me and my family during the hardest of times”.
“I have never known anyone else quite like him,” he added on X, “and rarely felt so close a working connection, and my heart is broken at the loss, and my thoughts and prayers are with his wife and children.”
Van Der Beek is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and their six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.
