Dove Cameron's Tragic Real-Life Story

The following article include mentions of mental health, suicide, and eating disorders.

From the outside looking in, it would certainly seem that actor Dove Cameron has been living a charmed life. The former star of popular Disney Channel series "Liv and Maddie" is a triple threat in the entertainment industry, wowing her fans with her singing, dancing, and acting capabilities. After that show ended its 2013 to 2017 run, Cameron enhanced her Disney Channel cred by joining the popular "Descendants" franchise, portraying Mal, daughter of "Sleeping Beauty" witch Maleficent.

Meanwhile, gigs outside of the Disney Channel piled up, beginning with the role of Amber Von Tussle in NBC's 2016 production of "Hairspray Live!" Other credits have included playing Anastasia Romanov in comedy series "History of the World, Part II," becoming a series regular in the quirky musical comedy "Schmigadoon!," and landing the starring role in the 2024 horror film, "Love Me Dead." Given this career trajectory, Cameron has clearly been making strides to step away from her squeaky-clean child star image and prove to the world that she's a bona fide actor.

Yet behind her accomplishments and her megawatt smile lies a harrowing past full of tragedy, dark moments, and depression. From insecurities about her looks to a heartbreaking loss in her family, the platinum blonde TV star has dealt with her fair share of suffering — all before she even entered her 20s. Below is Dove Cameron's tragic real-life story.

We all struggle with insecurities from time to time, and, though she's now a star, Cameron is no different. While she's in a much better place these days, she has admitted to feeling down about her appearance in the past. When TigerBeat asked her in 2016 if she'd always felt confident going makeup-free, her response was, "Definitely not! I wore a lot of makeup during school." 

Although she saw makeup as something fun to experiment with, Cameron also used the products to cover up how she really felt about herself. She revealed, "But there was also a part of me that really wanted to wear makeup all the time [when I was younger], because I felt like I wasn't beautiful underneath it."

Thankfully, Cameron learned to "appreciate" her face, and she made peace with her insecurity as she got older. "It's really maturing and understanding that there is more to life than looking good," she explained. 

Amen, sister!

Dove Cameron was just 8 when she experienced unspeakable tragedy for the first (but not last) time. As she revealed in a 2021 interview with Refinery29, her best friend was murdered by her father, who then killed her sister before committing suicide. At the time, Cameron and her family lived in Bainbridge Island, Washington, where Stephen Byrne killed daughters Hayley, 9, and Kelsey, 11, before turning his shotgun on himself in 2004. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported at the time, about 100 people gathered at a memorial for the beloved girls, where an unidentified young girl told the newspaper, "Hayley was my best friend."

That horrific murder-suicide was the tragic reason that Cameron started therapy at 8 years old. "I witnessed so much pain early on in life, and I remember thinking that it's so bizarre we pretend the pain doesn't exist," Cameron told BeatRoute about the help that she received from therapy at such a young age. "These conversations help people, so let's have them!" she added. "There's so much strength in vulnerability."

Sadly, Dove Cameron's childhood trauma was not confined to the tragic murder-suicide that tragically took her best friend. When she was 13, she lived through the heartbreak of her parents getting divorced.

However, her parents' split contained a silver lining that ultimately led her to follow her dreams — thanks to the youngster's tenacity. "When I was 13 and had been homeschooling for several years, my parents had divorced and I didn't see a life for myself in my small town, and my mom was looking for a fresh start," she recalled when interviewed by sbjct.

Cameron envisioned herself becoming an actor, but opportunities were few and far between in tiny Bainbridge Island. Realizing her mother was looking to make a change after her divorce, she began planting the idea of making a move from the state of Washington to Los Angeles. "I basically lawyered her for a year and made my case every day until I convinced her to let me start auditioning as a professional performer," she added.

Dove Cameron gave an interview to Yahoo! alongside her mom, Bonnie Wallace, and spoke about the traumatizing moments she had faced during her formative years, revealing that she had been a victim of bullying in her youth. Recalling how she'd felt during her younger days, Cameron said she would think to herself, "These kids don't like me, they don't accept me."

Some of the most devastating moments of her youth included when a group of girls locked her in a janitor's closet and when other students would attempt to trip her as she walked down the hallways. One time, another girl at school purposely spilled a drink on a dress Cameron had crafted. But it was an incident during a school field trip that was the most jarring. "Once in high school, on a field trip away from school, some girls brought razors to shave their legs and threw them at me and told me to kill myself," she remembered. 

Since her childhood, Cameron has gone on to form strong bonds with various celebrities in the industry, including her "Descendants" co-star Sofia Carson. However, Cameron didn't always have a ride-or-die BFF in her life. In 2017, she told Just Jared Jr., "I was always really strange." She continued, "I never had a crowd. You know how even the weird kids find a weird crowd? I was too weird for the weird kids. I'm serious. I look very conventional today, but I was ... not, growing up."

So what exactly was she like as a kid? Well, she revealed that she would wear different costumes to school and would "dress up as Johnny Depp every day." She even asked her mom to cut her hair "like a boy" so she could fool her classmates into thinking she was a male. "I was weird," she said. "I had no friends. But I loved it."

When Cameron was just 15 years old, her family was struck by tragedy when her father, Philip Alan Hosterman, took his own life. Cameron has remained pretty mum about the details of his passing, but, over the years, the actor has shed a little bit of light about her relationship with her dad.

In 2016, she posted a touching tribute to her father on her Instagram account, which included a touching yet heartbreaking message. A portion of the caption read, "You still teach me lessons every day, and make me laugh as the lessons you instilled at a young age begin to settle into my bones and make more sense. You set me up for the best life imaginable, and I plan to make your proud every single day and never waste it."

She continued, "I love you eternally, and can't wait to see you again, maybe in our next life as we find each other over and over. Forever your best friend, and your little girl."

In a July 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron opened up about the loss of her father and revealed some surprising information about his lifestyle. "He took his own life, and he also was closeted, which we only found out after he died," she said.

Learning that her dad was gay was a light bulb moment for her, providing her with more clarity about the devastating situation than she could have ever imagined. "When I found that out [that he was closeted], I was like, everything adds up," she said, before describing him as a sensitive person who had "bursts of anger."

While Cameron may not talk about her father much, her fans may be able to learn even more about her dad's life one day if things go as planned. "I'd really like to write a movie about him one day," she revealed to EW, "because my dad was just the most fascinating human being."

Many people don't realize that, like many other celebrities who don't use their real name, Dove Cameron doesn't go by her real name, either. The "Descendants" star was actually born as Chloe Celeste Hosterman. In September 2017, she took to X to give the sentimental reason as to why she doesn't use her real name professionally. "My father always called me Dove," her tweet read. "He took his own life when I was 15, I didn't get to say goodbye, so I changed it in honor of him." 

But "Dove Cameron" isn't just the actor's professional moniker — it's now her legal name. Speaking with StyleWatch, Cameron noted that she'd changed her name, noting, "So it's on my passport – everything legal is Dove" (via J-14).

The name change has apparently helped Cameron connect further with her father, despite his tragic passing. When a fan noted that it must be like Cameron's father is talking to her every time someone calls her "Dove," Cameron replied, "Exactly."

In an interview with SheKnows, Dove Cameron spoke about being "too much of a people pleaser" at one point in her life. She explained, "A lot of performers are, that's just the nature of performing — it completely relies on how people feel about you. I really dealt with that and trying to be someone else for every different crowd that I had. I felt like a different person at home, with my friends, with my boyfriend, classmates, bandmates, coworkers." 

Thankfully, the "Cloud 9" star finally managed to work through the issue once she realized it was much easier to just be herself. "There is one true version of myself and I feel really strongly that being anything but that is a disservice to myself," she said. "That's something that I'm learning right now."

Dove Cameron has always used her social media to talk about important issues that not only she has faced but that a lot of kids have also experienced. One of her followers on X asked if she suffered from anxiety, and, as usual, Cameron was very candid with her answer. She tweeted, "Yes :) but it has made me that much more disciplined in my thoughts. So it has been a blessing in disguise."

In a subsequent interview with Just Jared Jr., the Disney alum shared that it was her "dark" and "craziest childhood imaginable" that sent her into a tailspin. Although she dealt with the disorder "a lot," she didn't resort to medication to combat it. Instead, she decided to just "power through" it by refusing to let it take over her life.

"Anxiety is up and down. And anxiety comes and goes," she said. "So I don't ever really feel full days of that. And if I do, I keep going, like I know it's going to pass."

Following her dad's passing, Cameron and her mom moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a new school. She battled with depression during those early years and found that acting helped her through that tumultuous period in her life. "I felt very vulnerable, so I locked myself in this emotional nobody-can-touch-me kind of zone," she said to EW. "And the only way I could really get out of that was by being somebody else."

Once she landed the breakout role on "Liv and Maddie," she began having "panic attacks." The stress of processing her dad's death while being in front of the cameras was just too much for her to handle. "I finally got clear-eyed when I realized that Disney Channel is for kids. And I love kids. And I was going to get to work with kids all the time," she said. "And I started to cry all over again. Because what a treat, to be able to be someone for kids, to be a good role model, to be a big sister because I never was one."

We're sure glad she was able to forge ahead with her acting career while managing her mental health in the process. We don't even want to imagine what "Liv and Maddie" would've been like without her.

Dove Cameron had to deal with yet another tragic event almost five years after her father's untimely passing when "The Voice" contestant and YouTube star Christina Grimmie was shot and killed in St. Petersburg, Florida by a crazed fan. The gunman later killed himself after being tackled to the ground by Grimmie's brother, Marcus.

Cameron and Grimmie had a close relationship, and they had even collaborated on the 2015 song "What A Girl Is," alongside fellow artist Baby Kaely. Upon hearing the news of Grimmie's death, which happened just two days before an Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead, Cameron took to X to express her grief and anguish over both incidents, tweeting, "I am so sad. How can you move on from a weekend like this. I love every single one of you. Humanity is confusing. Love as much as you can." The devastated actor also revealed in a follow-up tweet that she hadn't "stopped crying in 3 days."

Viewers were captivated by Cameron's portrayal of identical twins Liv and Maddie Rooney on Disney Channel's "Liv and Maddie." Although she nailed the characters' different personalities flawlessly, the role pushed her into unchartered waters. "Right when 'Liv and Maddie' had started, there was no roadmap for how to do a show where one girl played two," she told Playbill.

Before the show "figured out a rhythm and a way to get through it," she admitted she struggled with the filming schedule while trying to maintain a healthy work-life balance — something that many other Disney stars before her had struggled with, along with holding dark secrets. "It was a long period of time where I was really struggling with the energy, and the workload, and shooting everything twice, then recording on the weekends, and still sleeping, and having a social life," she said.

It even came to a point where she considered walking away from the series. "There was definitely a time when I [told] my mom, 'I literally think I'm not capable of doing this. I do not think I will survive this. I think I am going to let all of Disney Channel down,'" she said. In the end, she decided to stick with the show up until it came to an end after four seasons. She was able to execute the roles of both characters so seamlessly that viewers were likely none the wiser about the inner turmoil she faced.

The stress that Dove Cameron experienced as a child actor, coupled with all her previous childhood trauma, began manifesting itself in her mental health. As she explained to StyleCaster, becoming a star on the Disney Channel was accompanied by expectations of being a role model to young viewers — which left her feeling woefully inadequate.

The pressure she felt to be perfect took its toll, eventually leading her to develop an eating disorder. "I've never said this before, but I had such a bad case of anorexia. I was so badly down that hole," Cameraon admitted. Looking back, she came to realize that restricting food  was a twisted cry for help. "I thought I needed to be absolutely tiny to be loved," she expressed. "I genuinely thought I needed to be as skinny as I possibly could to be loved and appreciated and good enough."

It wasn't until she began seeing her peers in LA relentlessly pursue a goal of becoming dangerously thin that she took stock of her life and health. "I started to watch some people that I knew personally go so far down the not-eating hole of trying to be so skinny," Cameron said. "Because that's such a thing in Hollywood ... Girls try to be as thin as possible." She couldn't help but see the hypocrisy of projecting the idea of equating being stick-thin with being healthy. "I realized that if I was going to be a role model then I needed to live like the girls that I needed when I was young," she said.

While part of the ensemble cast of Disney Channel's popular "Descendants" movies, Dove Cameron grew close to young actor Cameron Boyce, who portrayed Carlos de Vil, son of "101 Dalmatians" villain Cruella de Vil. Sadly, Cameron lost another friend when Boyce tragically died in his sleep after experiencing a seizure in July 2019. He was just 20.

In a series of videos she shared via Instagram, she paid tribute to her dear friend and co-star. "I've been unsuccessful thinking about trying to summarize something where there are no adequate words in the English language," she said (via People). "Over the last six years, since he was only 14, Cameron talked me down from countless ledges, talked me through eating disorders, helped me out of a dark relationship and through endless breakdowns."

Interviewed by E! News, Cameron emotionally teared up while discussing Boyce, comparing the experience of working together as that of working with a family member. "Like, how do you speak about your experience with one of your, like, favorite people, right?" she said. A few years later, she paid tribute in an Instagram post marking what would have been his 23rd birthday. "You are here, still. We feel you, still. I will love you, unchangingly, just like this," she wrote.

While she was starring in Disney Channel sitcom "Liv and Maddie," Dove Cameron began dating co-star Ryan McCarten. In 2016, he went public in a since-deleted Instagram post (via E! News) to reveal that they'd gotten engaged, referring to her as his "fiancée." "I can't believe I get to call you that," he wrote. "Thanks for saying yes." Cameron broke things off about six months later. "Dove has decided this relationship isn't what she wants," McCarten tweeted (via E! News). 

A few years later, Cameron revealed that she had felt pressure to put on a happy face in public, and play the role of besotted fiancée, when the reality was far darker. As she told Seventeen in 2019, that was her first serious romance. "A lot of what I went through in that first relationship, the very low-lows, I did not make public," she recalled.

Shortly after splitting from McCarten, Cameron began dating Thomas Doherty, whom she met when starring in the first "Descendants" movie. After four years of dating, they split up in the fall of 2020. "hi all," she tweeted. "In October, @thomasadoherty and I decided to part ways. The decision was incredibly difficult, but we still have love for each other, and will remain friends." Interviewed by Refinery29, she admitted that her split from Doherty had left her heartbroken. "It's messy right now," she admitted. "It's pretty watery, the intimacy of the world that I find myself in now."

Dove Cameron was in her late 20s when she realized that her mental health had been eroding. As she explained in an interview with People, she ultimately realized that she'd been deluding herself, believing that she'd been successfully taking care of her mental health far better than she actually had been. "I think I was under the impression that because I have always been someone who was very in touch with what was going on with me, that it almost acted as a hindrance as I got older, I had convinced myself that I knew how to manage my mental health well," she said. "I tricked myself into thinking that I never needed to stop and take breaks."

When she realized this, she decided the healthiest thing she could do was to step away from Hollywood for a while and place the focus on herself. When she publicly re-emerged in the spring of 2025 after pushing the pause button on her career, she adamantly knew that she made the right move by prioritizing her mental health over her acting and singing. "So while, yes, I felt a little self-conscious taking time for my mental health when nobody really knew what was going on with me, it's the best thing that I've done for myself, and it will continue to be the only reason why I am so good and relatively functional now because I took that time," she detailed.

One key reason why Dove Cameron has developed a habit of keeping a finger on the pulse of her mental health has been the severity to which it's been impacted over the years. In a 2023 interview with Byrdie, she put her cards on the table when she offered a stunning admission. "I think it's important just to say this: I've had times in my life when I was incredibly suicidal. And I think that needs to be destigmatized," she declared.

According to Cameron, her father ending his own life gave her a unique insight into the stigma surrounding suicide, and how shining a light on a terrifyingly taboo topic could open discussions that could help people in crisis. "I always think about how much shame and stigma there is around suicide," she explained. "And if we could be more open about suicide and mental health, I think there would be so many people [who would say], 'Hey, I feel like there's no other option. Can you show me that there are?'"

If you or anyone you know needs help with mental health, is struggling or in crisis, or needs help with an eating disorder, contact the relevant resources below:

• Contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
• Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
• Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).