‘Nanny McPhee’ Star Raphael Coleman Had No ‘Prior Health Problems’ Ahead of His Death, His Stepfather Says

Nanny McPhee star Raphael Coleman had no previous health problems before his death last week, his stepfather, Cartsen Jensen, revealed in a Facebook post on Feb. 8. Coleman died on Thursday, Feb. 6 at age 25. He collapsed while jogging and could not be revived.

“I guess there’s nothing that makes you see death as unfair and meaningless as when a young person dies,” Jensen, an award-winning author, wrote on Facebook in Danish. “It’s life itself that’s sabotaged. It just happened to my wife, Liz, whose youngest son, Raph of only 25, died last Friday. He collapsed without prior health problems in the middle of a trip and could not be restored. I got to know Raph when he was six years old, and we were so close.”

Jensen is a best-selling author who received the prestigious Olof Palme Prize in 2009. In his Facebook statement, Jensen said he does not want to share personal news on his Facebook page, but Coleman’s death was important news to share.

“Dear friends, readers and followers. I’ve never wanted to use this Facebook page for private purposes,” Jensen wrote. “This is where I try to inform myself in a chaotic world, analyse and explain my positions. But when I choose to tell you about the death of my father, it’s not just because the loss of him will bring me forever. This is also because I see in him the hope that a new youth in the middle of the climate crisis has lit up in us.”

Coleman played Eric Brown in Nanny McPhee, opposite Emma Thompson. In 2009, he made the films It’s Alice, Edward’s Turmoil and The Fourth Kind. In recent years, he focused on environmentalism, leading the group Extinction Rebellion and used the nickname Iggy Fox.

According to Jensen, Coleman was recently arrested for painting the Brazilian Embassy in London red in response to the Amazon Rainforest fires.

“When I think of Raph, I see something that will never die, a blunt of eternity, a light beam that lives forever in young people,” Jensen wrote. “We believe that it is us, the older generations who have something to give the young people. We believe that we are the ones who pass the baton of life to them. But I think it’s the other way around. The young people remind us why we’re alive. They remind us of the purpose of life that this is the gift we must not in distraction until we have unpacked it.”

Jensen also included an op-ed titled “This Is Why I Rebel,” written for The Hourglass newspaper.

“I don’t want to go to prison, but I’ll face whatever I need to,” Coleman wrote. “My actions aren’t about sacrifice, or arrest for the sake of it. Knowing the science, I have no choice but to tell the truth, and stick to my morals in the face of that truth. I won’t stand by and watch the world burn.”

Photo credit: MGM