Jenna Ortega is reflecting on her touching final moments with the late Cameron Boyce.
The 21-year-old actress was a rising star in the Disney Channel sphere at the same time as Boyce. Now, in a recent interview with French TV outlet Canal+, she shared a story with her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice costars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara about the last time she saw Boyce.
“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 [in an audition] and he knew me, since I was 11 or 12. This is a few years later, 15, 16, came in, we were supposed to be love interests,” Ortega said in a clip posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the late actor, who died in his sleep in 2019 after having a seizure.
“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 recalled. “And it was so sweet because I was uncomfortable and I was having a hard time. .. And then, we wished each other well.”
Ortega added that she was “really thankful and grateful” that Boyce stepped in during the audition and voiced the weirdness she was feeling, and O’Hara called him a “gentleman” for it, to which Ortega agreed.
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Boyce died when he was only 20 years old in July 2019, and in June at the annual Cam For A Cause fundraiser for The Cameron Boyce Foundation, his parents Libby and Victor Boyce told PEOPLE that it “means everything” to them that fans and his friends continue remembering the actor.
“All of his fans, all of his supporters, they still keep his legacy alive,” Victor said. “People still want to hold onto him. They don’t want him to be gone.”
Libby called the event “a reminder of just what a beautiful soul we birthed, but also we raised” as she admitted her late son’s recent 25th birthday, in particular, was “very bittersweet.”
“It was a very hard day, but it was also a very beautiful thing to see what he meant to so many people.”
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Like Ortega, any Disney stars have similarly reflected on Boyce’s kindness. On his 25th birthday, Sofia Carson called him “our Angel” as she wrote, “I miss your smile and sunshine a whole lot extra today.”
Skai Jackson, his former Jessie costar, wrote, “I’ll never forget you” as she shared a sweet photo of them hugging.
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China Anne McClain also recently reflected on the loss of Boyce as she told PEOPLE in a statement she was “apprehensive to revisit the Descendants world at first because losing Cam was the first heartbreak I’ve ever experienced.”
It was ultimately both “very fulfilling and healing” for the actress, though. “Once I saw how excited the new generation of kids were, it reminded me of myself when we created the original films. Everything came together beautifully.”
