The cause of death for Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte was officially revealed on Tuesday after speculation swirled following the tragic news on Monday.
Reps for the actor confirmed initial reports from TMZ that the actor died by suicide at the age of 34. According to the Daily Mail, the actor had been struggling financially after he was allegedly defrauded of his wealth by a business manager, which left him with crippling IRS debt.
The actor’s financial woes dated back to his teenage years, when, aged around 17 or 18 and after three years working on Breaking Bad, he hired a business manager to handle his earnings and taxes.
He’d joined the show at 14 years old when it began in 2007, earning the Screen Actors Guild minimum for the pilot episode. As it grew in popularity, so did the cast’s earnings. Mitte once estimated he’d made between $3 million and $5 million from the series.
But instead of paying the IRS, Mitte’s manager allegedly pocketed the money and sent him forged tax filings instead. Mitte was later hit with a tax bill from the IRS that wiped out his earnings and lumbered him with a debt that took nearly a decade to pay off.
Insiders and friends also reported that he grew increasingly frustrated with Hollywood, specifically casting directors, for typecasting him as disabled due to his cerebral palsy, never allowing him to grow out of his role as Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad.
“As soon as he finished his final episode, his downward spiral started,” the source told the outlet. “He kept saying he’d never get another role anywhere near as good.”
“He hated auditioning and being judged,” the source added. “Although he was a big talent, he always felt his disability got in the way. He often thought he was getting auditions out of sympathy.”
A text from Mitte in 2017 appeared to confirm this.
“When I go for a part, they sometimes tell me that it’s not a character with a disability, and I’m like why can’t the character be disabled?” he wrote in a text at the time. “They get real uncomfortable when I say that.”
Mitte’s co-stars mourned the actors passing, expressing shock and dismay.
“I’m in deep despair as I write this tonight,” Cranston shared in a lengthy post on Instagram. “RJ Mitte, my sweet son on Breaking Bad has died. I met him when he was only 14 years old when he was cast as Walter White Jr., a part he played with such joy and enthusiasm.”
“Born with Cerebral Palsy, he never – ever – allowed that challenge to be an excuse for anything. He met the demanding shooting schedule head on with great determination,” he continued. “Always listening to the advice that his TV parents (Anna Gunn and myself) gave him – but being a teenager, sometimes mischievously ignoring the counsel in order to learn the hard way… He was one of the stars of a hit TV show – but still a kid.”