James Van Der Beek, the actor best known for his role as Dawson Leery in the 1990s television series Dawson’s Creek, died peacefully Wednesday morning, according to a statement posted on his official Instagram account. He was 48 years old and had been battling colorectal cancer, a diagnosis he publicly revealed in November 2024.
The Instagram post, shared by his family, stated that Van Der Beek “met his final days with courage, faith, and grace.” It requested privacy as they mourned the loss of their “loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”
Just over a year before his death, on March 8, 2025, Van Der Beek marked his 48th birthday with a reflective video posted to Instagram, acknowledging it had been “the hardest year” of his life. He spoke candidly about how his illness had redefined his sense of self. “When I was younger I used to define myself as an actor, which was never really all that fulfilling,” he said. “And then I became a husband, which was much better. And then I became a father, and that was the ultimate. I could define myself then as a loving, capable, strong, supportive husband and father, provider, steward of the land that we’re so lucky to live on.”
He continued, explaining that his cancer diagnosis had stripped away those definitions. “Then, this year, I had to gaze my own mortality in the eye, and come nose-to-nose with death. And all of those definitions that I cared so deeply about were stripped from me. I was away for treatment, so I could no longer be a husband that was helpful to my wife. I could no longer be a father who could pick up his kids and place them to bed and be there for them. I could not be a provider because I wasn’t working. I couldn’t even be a steward of the land because at times I was too weak to prune all the trees during the winter.”
Van Der Beek is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and their six children: Olivia, 15; Joshua, 13; Annabel, 12; Emilia, 9; Gwendolyn, 7; and Jeremiah, 4.
Prior to his diagnosis with stage three colorectal cancer in August 2023, Van Der Beek had been working steadily in television, with recent roles in Walker (2024) and Overcompensating (2025). His absence from a Dawson’s Creek reunion special in the fall of 2025 had prompted speculation about his health, which he initially attributed to a stomach flu that caused significant weight loss.
The family’s Instagram post indicated that further details regarding Van Der Beek’s wishes and his “love for humanity and the sacredness of time” would be shared at a later date.
