Tall Girl star, Ava Michelle, recently spoke to People about her brother’s demise.
It’s almost a year since her brother Devon died of accidental Fentanyl poisoning. While her family declined to give details of his death, the Tall Girl star has started a campaign to raise awareness on the issue of accidental deaths caused by Fentanyl, often found laced into other drugs.
“It was very unexpected and obviously an accident,” says the actress, “It’s still hard to share, but I think it’s important.”
“More young people have died from fentanyl poisoning in the past couple of years than COVID,” she says.
“We really need to be talking about this so much more than we are. This is something I’m super passionate about and I’m actually going to be starting my own foundation [for awareness] on it.”
In line with the initiative to raise awareness on accidental death from the aforementioned opioid, Michelle and her mum Jeanetter Cotta launched a clothing line called Identified, inspired by Devan.
“The night before he died he was talking about this line that we all wanted to do together, and he named it the night before he passed,” says Michelle.
“He was sitting there talking about how much we struggle to find our identity in this world because society really just makes it difficult for us. They think we can be put in boxes, but we’re all different, and we’re all human, and so we all should just be identified as human.”
The 19-year-old dancer and actress who was featured in Tall Girl, spoke fondly of her brother and how he inspired her.
“One of the most beautiful things about my brother was that he always wanted to do good, and to never judge people,” she says. “I feel like he was the most least judgmental person I ever met. I think there’s a lot that I had to learn from him.”
