In February, the world lost two titans of millennial television. Days after Dawson’s Creek’s James Van Der Beek died of colorectal cancer at 48, Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria actor Eric Dane died of ALS at 53. Van Der Beek left six kids behind; Dane, two, and friends of the actors quickly set up GoFundMes to come to the families’ aid. The deaths were tragedies, and fans and those who knew the actors outpoured their grief. “The support of friends, family, and the wider community will make a world of difference as they navigate the world ahead,” organizers wrote in the description for Van Der Beek’s fundraiser. Thousands donated, leaving warm comments and memories of the two men. The GoFundMe for Van Der Beek’s family far surpassed its original $1.5 million target, and Dane’s has almost met its $500,000 goal. But the crowdsourcing has rubbed others the wrong way: Why, they ask indignantly, are Hollywood families asking me for help?
GoFundMes, they post on TikTok and X and in the Instagram comments, aren’t life insurance; asking for donations comes off as tone-deaf and entitled. One woman advised her followers not to spend their hard-earned money on celebrities and stressed that Van Der Beek purchased a 36-acre Texas ranch for upwards of $4 million shortly before his death. “Yet now their GoFundMe is saying they need help with their bills and living.” One woman said organizers were asking “people who make significantly less money than them to be donating, and they are, and it’s wild to see,” a sentiment echoed in her comments section. “I’m so sorry he passed,” one person wrote. “But so many families with so much less suffer when a primary caretaker passes. His rich actor friends should help them, not the average person struggling to buy groceries.” Many famous friends have — Hailey Bieber and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson each donated at least $20,000 to Dane’s fundraiser, while Zoe Saldaña reportedly set up a recurring monthly donation of $2,500 to support Van Der Beek’s family.
Those defending the GoFundMes argue that the actors’ finances aren’t as rosy as many assume. Just about 12 percent of SAG-AFTRA members actually qualify for union health insurance, which requires them to work at least 108 days on union shoots or make a minimum of around $28,000 a year. Last December, Van Der Beek, who starred in only two episodes of TV last year, auctioned off memorabilia from Dawson’s Creek (a show he said he received no residual money from) and Varsity Blues to help pay for his treatment. Colorectal cancer is one of the most expensive cancers to treat, though some pointed to his wife’s anti-vaccine views as a reason not to donate. (Speaking to Today last year, Van Der Beek raised eyebrows when he said his therapies involved “trying a bunch of stuff.”)
A source close to Dane’s family also told TMZ that the actor was burdened by exorbitant medical costs toward the end of his life, which isn’t hard to imagine: 24/7 home care alone can cost upwards of $60,000 a month, according to a spokesperson from the ALS Association. “Just figuring out the health-care system is its own thing — the health-insurance company will deny you what you’re asking for and you have to appeal and then you have to apply again,” Rebecca Gayheart, Dane’s widow and caregiver, told The Cut last year. Mike McGuiness, one of the friends who set up Dane’s GoFundMe, released a statement addressing the toll that both COVID and ALS took on the actor’s ability to work as his disease, which left him unable to even use his hands, progressed. “Sadly, he couldn’t leave his family with the resources he had hoped,” the friend said. Strangers defended the fundraiser too. “Welcome to being disabled. It’s much more expensive to stay alive,” a TikToker with disabilities said in a video addressing the backlash. “If they’re struggling,” another pointed out, referring to celebrities whose finances are destroyed by the American health-care system, “then we’re doomed.”
Much of the blowback appears to come from exasperation rather than a lack of empathy. Regular people are tired, in this economic climate, of celebrities crowdsourcing. There was the time Kylie Jenner shared a $10,000 GoFundMe for a makeup artist’s medical expenses; Mandy Moore shared a GoFundMe link to rebuild her in-laws’ home after the Los Angeles fires last winter. When Oprah and Dwayne Johnson launched a Maui wildfire-victim fund in 2023, each donated $5 million to the cause, but critics wondered why the two — both of whom own luxury homes on the island — hadn’t given more or simply covered all of it. “I get it, and I completely understand. I could’ve been better,” Johnson said in an Instagram video addressing the criticism and explaining that this was his first time launching a fund. “Money ain’t falling out of the sky … the last thing you want to hear when you are living paycheck to paycheck is someone asking you for money, especially when the person asking you for money already has a lot of money.”
Still, other celebrities want you to understand that, in the era of streaming, slashed or nonexistent residuals, and work so unsustainable it’s hard to even get health-care coverage, fame is hardly synonymous with wealth, especially if you’re a working actor whose last hit show was decades ago. “The word elite is thrown around as a fact,” the actress Alyssa Milano, who faced backlash in 2024 for sharing a GoFundMe raising money for her son’s baseball team, wrote in a Substack post responding to the backlash to the latest fundraisers. “Compassion should not have a means test … Communities have always done this. In small towns. In churches. In union halls. When someone is ill, when someone is grieving, when uncertainty descends, people gather resources and say: Let us help carry them.”
Not everyone is buying it. “There is a difference between needing help to survive and needing help to maintain status,” Toi Smith, the founder of an organization that provides financial assistance and community support to single Black mothers, wrote in an Instagram post calling out Milano’s Substack post as glaringly out of touch with the reality of everyday income inequality. And the issue isn’t just wealth but visibility; most people’s GoFundMes never make headlines. In the comments section of Smith’s post, one person said their father had been behind on his mortgage when he died last year, and the GoFundMe created for him never took off. “You shouldn’t have to be well-known to be worthy of help,” they wrote. “THAT is the means test. And most of us fail it.”
Krystle Nieves can relate. Eight years ago, her 44-year-old husband suddenly died, and the Buffalo mother of two found herself widowed at the age of 31. Her life was upended one random Thursday; she had no life insurance and had to downsize to make ends meet, moving out of her house and navigating her bills and grief alone. When she made a video criticizing the GoFundMe for Kimberly Van Der Beek, she was met with pushback — it was people’s money to donate as they wanted, commenters told her; she had no right to tell people how to grieve. “And that’s fine,” Nieves says. But she hopes the discourse will inspire more people to have conversations about the inevitable, which can strike anybody, of any means, at any time. “Planning ahead was something I didn’t think about back then,” Nieves says. “We talk about loss after it happens; everybody says, I don’t want to think about that. Well, eventually the rug is pulled from underneath you, and you have to.”