Jurassic Park star Sam Neill’s cause of death has been revealed, with his former co-star sharing that the iconic actor’s cancer battle significantly weakened his immune system.
The 78-year-old contracted pneumonia before his death on July 13, according to his Hunt for the Wilderpeople co-star and close friend Rima Te Wiata, who spoke to the New Zealand Herald about Sam’s passing.
Rima told the outlet that Sam would be “annoyed” by his cause of death, after battling blood cancer for so long. “It really sucks, actually,” she said. “I think he would be like: ‘For goodness sake, I got over my cancer. And now look, now I get pneumonia. What next?'”
“He’s on his big journey now,” she concluded. Sam’s ex-partner, Australian journalist Laura Tingle, told ABC Radio Sydney that his “poor old body just got a bit exhausted” after undergoing cancer treatment for several years.
“The bottom line is he’d been fighting various forms of cancer for at least the last five years, intensively,” said Laura, who dated Sam between 2018 and 2021. “He’s been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and everybody who loved him has been willing him on from near and far, but I think it was just a bit too much to recover from one more time.”
She continued: “He’d had a lot of chemo and a lot of immunotherapy and, thankfully, it finally cleared him of the blood cancer that he had, but that left him pretty compromised in terms of his immune system.”
© WireImageThe father of four was diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in 2022, and after several years of chemotherapy and treatments, Sam declared he was cancer-free in April 2026. The star’s family announced his passing on social media on July 13, before tributes flooded in from his past co-stars and close friends.
“It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney, Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” the statement read.
© David Dare Parker“The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care.” His family asked for privacy as they grieved his sudden loss.
© Getty ImagesSam was open about his cancer battle, which began in 2022 when he noticed he had swollen glands during the press tour for Jurassic World Dominion. “I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me,” he later told The Guardian in 2023. “Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know?”
He continued: “We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”
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