American Horror Story actor Harry Hains battled mental illness and addiction prior to his Tuesday, Jan. 7 death, according to his mother, actress Jane Badler. Announcing her son’s passing at the age of 27 in an Instagram post on Friday, Badler opened up about Hains’ past struggles.
“On Jan 7 my beautiful son died . He was 27 and had the world at his feet,” she wrote, adding that “sadly he struggled with mental illness and addiction. A brilliant spark shone bright too short a time.”
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Badler – who herself has starred as Diana Marshall in the Australian soap opera Neighbours as well as V, Falcon Crest, and Mission: Impossible – did not further explain her son’s struggles. In an interview with U.K. outlet Boys by Girls in March, Hains had explained that although came from a “good family,” he was drawn to pills after he began suffering from a sleeping disorder as a child.
“Maybe I have a part of me that is self-destructive, because I think I do have that,” he told the outlet. “Growing up I had a very serious sleeping disorder called Idiopathic Insomnia. I couldn’t sleep for my entire childhood until I started taking sleeping pills at 12/13. So I was tortured by sleep deprivation and I had a lot of phobias.”
Hains went on to add that those early experiences helped shape who he was.
“Having my childhood so disrupted came back to haunt me in ways that were unexpected and left me with my own kind of issues that were then self-inflicted and self-destructive,” he explained. “But tragedy can come in all forms. All experience is relative, all happiness is relative, all tragedy is relative. We all suffer as much as each other, there are just certain things that trigger us.”
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Hains began as a pre-med student before he moved to London and then later New York and Los Angeles. Initially pursuing a modelling career, Hains soon found himself dabbling in modeling, acting, poetry, and music. Performing under the name ANTIBOY, Hains released his album A Glitch in Paradise, which he described as “living in this loop of heartbreak.”
In 2015, Hains starred in a single episode of FX’s American Horror Story: Hotel, which was followed by roles in The Deleted, Fallen Blossoms, Day Driver, and Lulu. Haines also starred as the character Noah in Netflix’s The OA and had several other upcoming projects.
Hains’ cause of death has not been announced. A memorial service will be held in Los Angeles on Jan. 12.
