Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte became main breadwinner for family at 13, when his mother became paralysed, was fired from her job: ‘It was scary but…’

Actor RJ Mitte, who rose to fame playing the protagonist Walter White’s son in the crime drama TV series Breaking Bad, has died at 34. The actor’s representative confirmed to People that he died by suicide. According to People, he was found dead in his room by the Brownsville Police Department. Off-screen, the actor had some similarities with his Breaking Bad character, Walter White Jr. He, too, lived with the neurological disorder cerebral palsy.

Mitte was adopted by a couple, Roy Frank Mitte Jr. and Dyna Mitte, who separated when he was two months old. In several interviews, Mitte talked about his mother and the bond they shared and how he became a breadwinner at an early age to support her.

In a chat with the Sydney Morning Herald, the actor said his mother adopted him, as he was suffering from ovarian cancer and couldn’t have children.


His mother suffered a major accident which left her partially paralysed for six years. A car ploughed into her at 40mph – and ruptured her spine. After the accident, she was also fired from her job. “She was a single parent, and we had just moved into a new place in Louisiana and feared we would lose everything,” he said.

He said he mowed lawns and did whatever he could do to scrape cash together. In an interview with the Guardian, he revealed he also took care of his younger sister Lacey. There was a 12-year-age gap between the two, and her father wasn’t around, so he changed her diapers, bathed her, fed her, and took care of her.

He revealed he had become the main breadwinner of the family by age 13. He started his acting career by working as an extra and gradually made his way to pivotal roles. “It was scary but necessary. I started off working as an extra, and I had to keep getting jobs to pay the bills. It evolved into a career very quickly…” he said.

Following several small roles as an extra, such as a cameo in Disney’s teen sitcom Hannah Montana, Mitte grew interested in filmmaking and started enrolling in acting classes. He quickly landed the part of Walter White Jr. in AMC’s hit crime series Breaking Bad. Similar to Mitte, the character suffers from cerebral palsy. The character was influenced by a friend of series creator Vince Gilligan who had the condition and depended on crutches. While Walter White Jr. relied on crutches for walking on screen, Mitte had already moved past needing them in his daily life. Variety critic Daniel D’Addario lauded Mitte’s performance as a major advancement for disability representation.

Nonetheless, Mitte believed the performance had set remarkably high standards that he might never meet. During the 2013 Media Access Awards, Mitte was honored with the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award for his role as Walter White Jr. He also awarded the RJ Mitte Diversity Award, which bears his name, to deaf actor Ryan Lane. The Screen Actors Guild then designated Mitte as a representative for artists with disabilities. He also acted as a representative for Inclusion in the Arts and Media of Performers with Disabilities, a group dedicated to employing and assisting artists with disabilities.

After Breaking Bad, Mitte was cast in several sci-fi and thriller films such as The Recall, River Runs Red, Time Share, etc. He was also the lead in the 2019 film Standing Up For Sunny, where his character had cerebral palsy too.