‘The Dark Knight’ Actor Reveals His Son Died of COVID-19

Michael Jai White is opening up about the loss of his oldest child after the 38-year-old son of The Dark Knight actor passed away “a few months ago” due to COVID-19. White opened up about the tragedy in an Aug. 1 interview with VladTV, saying he was devastated to lose his first child, whom he had welcomed when he himself was just 15 years old. Watch the full interview with the actor below.

He and his boy had “grown up together,” White explained, but it wasn’t long before his son started to fall into a dangerous lifestyle, which would eventually play a role in his tragic passing. The Black Dynamite star shared that his son grew up surrounded by the “street element” of life, and he would continue down that path even as he got older. “Unfortunately, he was still kinda out there in the streets hustling, wasn’t doing well, started getting on substances,” White shared. “He’d come out, go back in, all that type of stuff.”

While White had attempted to do his best to help his son, “ultimately, it’s up to that person, especially if it’s a grown person,” the actor explained. His son was admitted to the hospital, where he stayed for a while, but substance abuse issues had made his “system compromised,” and all the more vulnerable to COVID-19.

The Spawn actor specified that his son had not gotten vaccinated against the virus, and once he was exposed, it marked the beginning of the end for him. “COVID was waiting for him… That was the knockout blow,” White explained of his son’s eventual cause of death. White’s son was the father to six children that he left behind after his death.

White is a father to five other children, not including children from wife Gillian Iliana Waters’ previous relationship. White paused in the interview to count all of his children, because he shared that he claims all the members of his blended family as his own, regardless of blood relation.

COVID-19 numbers are on the rise again in the U.S. with the spread of the Delta variant as health officials ask that those who have not gotten the vaccine get vaccinated in order to stop the spread. The virus has killed more than 613,000 people in the U.S. since last year.