Five years after his death, the parents of late actor Cameron Boyce, Libby and Victor Boyce, still hear new stories about how their son impacted other’s lives.
“[It] seems like no one has anything bad to say about Cameron ever,” Victor, who established The Cameron Boyce Foundation alongside his wife in 2019, exclusively told Us Weekly. “If you’ve ever worked with him, or especially spent quality time as a true friend, you know what kind of person he was, and he just affected people, even those people that never met him, somehow feel his essence and feel his genuineness and his generosity. He was just a really special person.”
Boyce, star of Disney Channel’s Descendants movies and comedy series Jessie, died on July 6, 2019, at 20 years old from a seizure that occurred in his sleep. He’d been diagnosed with epilepsy three years prior.
In September, Jenna Ortega shared with French TV outlet Canal+ that Boyce stopped a kiss from happening in an audition because even though they were friends, Boyce was a few years older than Ortega, and they both felt uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know he ever even met [Ortega]. Cameron wasn’t the kid who came home saying, ‘Oh, I met this person.’ When he was leaving the audition room, he left it there, he didn’t bring it home. And so I personally didn’t know he met her,” Libby told Us. “I personally did not know that story. So I really appreciate those stories.”
Libby added, “I know that he was an amazing person, and, I guess, the complete opposite of what you think of when you think of a child star.”
“Hearing [these stories] over and over, I just go, ‘Do people really know this? Or are they just being nice?’ I think it’s very life-affirming, and it’s also really sad … just thinking about what he would be doing, how he would use his voice, how he would help others,” Victor further explained. “Cameron was all about the underdog, people with special needs. We think about it — and grief is very lonely. So we think about that a lot. And it’s lovely to hear from people who have good things to say about him, and at this time, it’s bittersweet.”
As Epilepsy Awareness Month gets ready to kick off in November, The Cameron Boyce Foundation, which honors Cameron by raising awareness and funding research to cure epilepsy, will launch the podcast “Now What?!” on November 4. It aims to start a dialog about epilepsy and educate young people on what the disease is.
“We really want to connect with youth because like everything else, they’re the key to the future for everything,” Victor added. “So if we can get youth on board, you know, sharing their stories, and hopefully it will start opening up other people.”
Making more people aware of epilepsy is important to Libby and Victor because of the misconceptions surrounding it.
“People used to think it was witchcraft or beauty or mental illness,” Victor said. “These things have to be addressed in a way where people can understand what’s happening and not react in a negative way.”
Libby told Us she also has a message for people who are newly diagnosed with epilepsy: see an epileptologist.
“An epileptologist is a neurologist, but they specialize in epilepsy. And so, just like any disease, you want the specialist; you don’t want the generalist,” Libby said. “We really encourage that.”
Reporting by Amanda Williams
