Alicia Witt’s Family: Everything We Know About Her Parents and More After Their Deaths

Credit: Courtesy of Alicia Witt/Instagram; Shutterstock

Alicia Witt’s Family: Everything We Know About Her Parents and More After Their Deaths

Actress Alicia Witt kept her family life relatively private as she attained stardom, but her parents Robert and Diane Witt became the subject of headlines after their mysterious deaths. The Walking Dead alum announced the news in a statement released in December 2021. “I reached out to a cousin who lives close to my parents to check on them. Sadly, the outcome was unimaginable,” she said. “I ask for some privacy at this time to grieve and to wrap my head around this turn of events, and this surreal loss.” Alicia asked her relative to check on her mother and father at their Worcester, Massachusetts, home on December 20 after she had not heard from her parents in “several days.” Local newspaper Telegram & Gazette reported that the Nashville alum’s cousin called police for assistance in checking on Robert and Diane. The authorities found the couple dead when they entered their home but did not see any obvious causes of death. Robert was 87, while Diane was 75. Lieutenant Sean Murtha clarified in a statement, “There was no trauma.” [jwplayer 8FuRnzXE-zhNYySv2] The fire department visited Robert and Diane’s home to check the air quality after the tragedy but found no evidence of carbon monoxide or other dangerous gases. Police confirmed that the Massachusetts medical examiner will perform autopsies on the pair to determine their causes of death. Alicia revealed in September how her mother played a role in her big break when she was discovered by a producer from That’s Incredible! “The producer saw a photo of me reading in a magazine and got in touch and asked if I had anything I could do on the show. My mom had, at that point, taught me how to do a scene from Romeo and Juliet. I was 5,” she told The Boston Globe. “Two years later, the casting director for Dune was searching for someone to play the role of Alia and [saw that clip]. It was serendipity.” Although she was a child star, the Two Weeks Notice actress explained in August 2014 that her family struggled financially when she was young. “My parents were both teachers. My dad made about $35,000 a year and we didn’t have a car until I was, I think, 11,” she told Marketplace. “Money was always something that we had to be careful of.” Scroll through the gallery below to learn more about Alicia and her family: [podcast_block]

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Alicia Witt

Alicia grew up in Massachusetts and was considered a child prodigy after learning to talk by age 2 and read by age 4. Director David Lynch worked with her in film and television — including in 1984’s Dune, her acting debut — before she earned her high school equivalency credential at 14. She is now an actress and singer, known for her roles in Cybill, Mr. Holland's Opus, Two Weeks Notice, Friday Night Lights, The Walking Dead, Nashville, Twin Peaks, The Exorcist, Orange Is the New Black and a long list of Hallmark Channel movies. 

Credit: Courtesy of Alicia Witt/Instagram

Diane Witt

Diane (née Pietro) was a junior high school reading teacher. She also held the Guinness World Record for longest hair from 1989 to 1996. She revealed in 1988 that she “even caught fish” with her 10-foot locks as Robert added, “We just tied a worm to it and cast.”

Credit: Courtesy of Alicia Witt/Instagram

Robert Witt

The patriarch was a science teacher and photographer. Alicia paid tribute to her dad in June for Father’s Day. “To my amazing dad, the wise and hilarious and always curious one, the greatest teacher, and the OG Witty,” she wrote via Instagram. “I am deeply blessed in the dad department and I know that every single day.”

Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

Ian Witt

Like his older sister, Ian was interested in music and acting as a child. He appeared in 1991’s Liebestraum, but that is his only acting credit. He has since kept a low profile away from the spotlight.

Credit: Courtesy Alicia Witt/Instagram

Their Lifestyle Before Passing Away

Alicia spoke out about her parents’ deaths in January 2022, one month after they were found unresponsive in their Massachusetts home. At the time, she wrote a lengthy Instagram post about the events that occurred before the incident.

The former Orange Is the New Black actress explained that her parents hadn’t “allowed” her in their home for “well over a decade,” which is why she didn’t know their heater had broken. The freezing temperatures, a malfunctioning furnace and deteriorating home were later identified as possible contributing factors in their deaths, Telegram & Gazette reported in December 2021. 

“They refused to allow workers into their house. I begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move — but every time, they became furious with me, telling me I had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control,” Alicia wrote via social media. “It was not for a lack of trying on my part, or the part of other people who loved them.”

The Christmas Tree Lane actress noted that her mom and dad were “not penniless,” but they were “fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls, and with that, they made choices — choices that I couldn’t talk them out of.”

She added: “Even if I could have had a crystal ball and looked into the future — if I could have said to them, ‘You are going to break my heart and the hearts of all who love you with a worst-case-scenario ending if you don’t let us help you’ — I still think they would have made the same choices. They weren’t willing to make different ones.”

Credit: Courtesy Alicia Witt/Instagram

How Alicia Is Mourning

The “I Hope It’s Me” singer revealed via social media in January 2022 that she attended a “beautiful service and burial” in her parents’ hometown earlier that month. She reflected on her mom and dad’s sudden deaths in an Instagram post, noting that her “heart is broken” now that they’re gone.

She called her parents “brilliant educators, deeply kind, curious, intuitive, wise, young at heart, funny” before sharing her final memories of them. “Our last words to each other were, ‘I love you.’ That part was simple; never in doubt. They loved me so. I loved them so,” Alicia wrote.