Dawson's Creek actor James Van Der Beek has died, aged 48
11 February 2026, 21:57 | Updated: 12 February 2026, 17:23
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Actor James Van Der Beek, best known for playing Dawson Leery in Dawson’s Creek, has died aged 48 from bowel cancer.
His family announced that he “passed peacefully” and faced his final days “with courage, faith, and grace.”
James was diagnosed in late 2023 and shared the news publicly the following November.
The actor, a father of six, rose to fame in the late 1990s through Dawson’s Creek and Varsity Blues.
He later appeared in Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and competed on Dancing with the Stars.
Despite treatment, he continued to work, most recently guest-starring in the Prime Video comedy Overcompensating.
Van Der Beek told Business Insider that his first symptoms were changes in his bowel habits, later confirmed as stage-three colorectal cancer.
He spoke openly about the toll of treatment, describing how illness stripped away his sense of identity as “a father, a provider, a husband.”
Following his diagnosis, he used his platform to promote cancer screening, saying, “If I can save anyone from having to go through this, that’s magic.”
The actor appeared virtually at a Dawson’s Creek reunion in September 2025, where castmates including Michelle Williams and Katie Holmes performed a live reading of the show’s pilot to raise money for F Cancer.
James married Kimberly Van Der Beek in 2010, after they met during a trip to Israel.
The couple had six children, Olivia (15), Joshua (13), Annabel (12), Emilia (9), Gwendolyn (7) and Jeremiah (4).
