RJ Mitte, Breaking Bad actor who championed disability rights, dies at 34

RJ Mitte, the actor who played Walter White Jr. in the landmark television series Breaking Bad and later became a prominent voice for disability rights, has died. He was 34.

Mitte died on Monday, October 12, 2026, according to authorities and his representatives. Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa told The Associated Press that she declared him dead at about 1.30 p.m. at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas.

Hinojosa said she was unable to provide a cause of death, and that an autopsy will be performed. No further information on the cause could be given until that examination is completed.

In a statement announcing his death, Mitte's representatives said he had "built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion." The statement said he drew on his own experience of living with cerebral palsy to bring authenticity to his role, and used that platform "to challenge stereotypes and promote greater representation for people with disabilities."

Mitte appeared in nearly every episode of all five seasons of Breaking Bad, the AMC drama about a high school chemistry teacher who turns to manufacturing methamphetamine. The series, which ran from 2008 to 2013, was recently ranked the best television show of the 21st century in a poll conducted by The New York Times.

As Walter White Jr., Mitte played the teenage son of Bryan Cranston's Walter White. The character was written as a young man living with cerebral palsy, navigating school, family tensions and his father's double life. The part was notable for being one of the relatively few substantial television roles written for a character with a disability and performed by an actor who shares that lived experience.

Off screen, Mitte became a familiar figure in disability advocacy. He spoke publicly about his own cerebral palsy, campaigned for better representation of disabled people in film and television, and argued that casting decisions should reflect the audiences who watch them. In interviews over the years, he described his work as an effort to shift how disability is portrayed on screen — away from pity or inspiration and towards ordinary, fully realised lives.

His death has drawn fresh attention to a debate that advocates have raised for years: that performers with disabilities remain significantly under-represented in mainstream entertainment, even as awareness of accessibility and inclusion has grown. Disability rights groups have long argued that on-screen representation shapes public attitudes, employment prospects and access to public spaces.

Colleagues and advocates remembered Mitte as someone who used an unexpected platform to press for change. His representatives said his work on inclusion extended well beyond acting, describing a career in which advocacy and performance were closely intertwined.

Mitte's death was confirmed by the justice of the peace and by his representatives. Brownsville is a city in Cameron County, in the southern tip of Texas.