Cameron Boyce tragically passed away at the age of 20 in 2019
Jenna Ortega has opened up on the moment Cameron Boyce stopped an intimate joint audition.
The Grown Ups star sadly passed away at the age of 20 in 2019.
He died in his sleep due to a seizure caused by epilepsy, a health condition he had been dealing with privately.
Cameron Boyce tragically passed away at the age of 20 in 2019 (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
While out promoting her new film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ortega, 21, said the pair knew each other from when she was about ’11 or 12′ through their roles on the Disney Channel.
While Ortega rose to fame in Bizaardvark alongside Jake Paul, Boyce also starred in Jessie and Descendants.
During an interview with co-stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara for Canal+, the actor revealed: “The last time I saw my friend Cameron Boyce – I’d known him since I was like 11 or 12, and we were supposed to kiss and he knew me since I was 11 or 12.
“This is a few years later, 15, 16, [we] came in, we were supposed to be love interests.
“But because he obviously felt weird and he was a bit older, he was like – we both just kinda looked at each other and we were like, ‘No, we can’t do this.’”
Ortega says she will always be ‘thankful’ for what Boyce did (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Ortega added: “He was so sweet because I was uncomfortable and I was having a hard time in the audition. And then, we wished each other well.
“I remember being really thankful and grateful that he did that.”
Commenting on the interview, one fan said: “He really was such a gentleman – a very sad loss to the world.”
Another added: “That’s a really sweet memory of Cameron.”
A third wrote: “He was so rare, him being gone hits every single day.”
Boyce was found unconscious at his home in North Hollywood on 6 July, 2019.
His family said at the time that he had suffered a seizure as a result of ‘an ongoing medical condition’, confirming days later he had epilepsy.
His parents, Libby and Victor, were unaware that the condition could cause fatal seizures, known as Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).
His mum told The Independent: “It is the number one neurological disease and we don’t talk about it. People, for some reason, don’t feel free to discuss their diagnosis. There’s just not enough awareness and there’s not enough education for those people who are newly diagnosed.
“One in 26 people have epilepsy. Everybody knows somebody who has epilepsy, yet we never talked about it.”
Featured Image Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images/Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
