Former child star dies in California wildfires
Entertainment
British-born star was unable to be rescued
(Web Desk) - Rory Callum Sykes, a British-born former child actor, has died in the wildfires that have devastated California this week.
Sykes, who featured in the Australian TV series Kiddy Kapers, was at his family’s home in Malibu when he died at the age of 32.
The news was announced on X/Twitter by his mother, Shelley Sykes, who also starred in the 1998 reality series.
“It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son @Rorysykes to the Malibu fires yesterday,” Shelley wrote.
Sykes was more recently known as a video game streamer and had been living in Sydney, Australia, before recently immigrating to the US.
He had been born blind and with cerebral palsey; during an appearance on the Australian talk show Kerri-Anne as a child, he and his mother discussed the surgeries he had undergone to restore his sight.
His mother wrote that he was living in a cottage on his family’s large Malibu estate when the fires broke out.
“I couldn’t put out the cinders on his roof with a hose because the water was switched off by Las Virgenes Municipal Water,” she wrote.
“Even the 50 brave firefighters had no water all day.”
Shelley wrote that she was “heartbroken” by her son’s death, describing him as a “true humanitarian”.
“Rory was born blind with cerebral palsy & had difficulty walking,” she wrote. “He overcame so much with surgeries & therapies to regain his sight & to be able to learn to walk. Despite the pain, he still enthused about traveling the world with me from Africa to Antarctica.”
