Young and the Restless alum Dolores “Dee” Freeman has died. She was 66.
“On behalf of her family, it is with deepest sadness that we share this update with you. Dee passed away peacefully on April 2, 2026, after a brave and fearless fight with cancer,” the actress’ family wrote in a Friday, April 3, statement via her Instagram. “Thank you to everyone who supported Dee during her battle.”
Her family continued, “It blew her away to know how many people cared about her and were pulling for her. We know Dee is up there in heaven being the force of nature she always was. Now she’s doing it with her angel wings on. Rest in peace, Dee.”
A cause of death has not been publicly shared, though Freeman battled stage IV lung cancer in the years prior to her death.
“Dee wasn’t just my client — she was someone I truly respected and admired,” Freeman’s longtime publicist, Desirae L. Benson, said in a statement. “She carried herself with a level of grace, strength and authenticity that is rare. Even in the face of stage IV lung cancer, she showed up with courage and dignity.”
Benson concluded, “Dee had a quiet power that commanded respect without ever needing to demand it. Her legacy is not just in her work, but in how she made people feel — and that will stay with us forever.”
Freeman, who is survived by her two children, detailed her cancer battle nearly two months before her death.
“My sisters and I and a close friend went to Scotland, Ireland, London and Wales in August. We went to the Blarney Stone and you have to get down, scoot backwards to kiss the Blarney Stone behind you,” Freeman recalled during a February interview on the “Music and Medicine” YouTube channel. “I began to feel a pain in my shoulder, and I thought, ‘Well, you over-did it. You twisted it wrong.’”
While Freeman initially believes that the pain would subside, it actually persisted for weeks. Upon her return home to California, Freeman visited a doctor who took an X-ray of her shoulder. The test ultimately revealed there were masses in her left and right lungs.
“I went through a slew of tests over the next month and finally the PET scan was the definitive,” she said. “After the second test, I was, like, ‘Is it cancer?’ They said, ‘Well, we’re trying to figure [it] out. We don’t know yet if it’s cancer.’ One of the scariest things a person could hear.”
By the time Freeman found out the mass was cancerous, the tumor had already metastasized and elevated her diagnosis to stage IV. She underwent two rounds of chemotherapy as treatment.
“My doctor [said], ‘Well, this is incurable,’” Freeman said. “I’ve had to pull on my inner strength because the one thing that I am [and that] I have no intention of doing is going out with lung cancer. I’m too young, I’ve got so much more to do with my life.”
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