Eva LaRue, the “CSI: Miami” star, has been facing a tumultuous period following the death of her ex-husband, John Callahan. The longtime soap opera performer passed away from a massive stroke at the age of 66. In the days following his death, Callahan’s home was ransacked, and his personal and material property stolen, adding to the grief and chaos for LaRue and their daughter, Kaya Callahan.
“It has definitely been a roller coaster because not only is my daughter [Kaya Callahan] grieving so hard, but I’m grieving separately in my way, too, because he has been my great friend,” LaRue, who was married to Callahan from 1996 to 2004, told Fox News. “And at the same time, somebody broke into his house right after he died and stole his identity, his car, his laptop. They have been taking out loans and credit cards in his name and they’ve siphoned money out of his bank account – it’s been a nightmare. A nightmare.”
LaRue, who also acted alongside Callahan on the ABC series “All My Children,” described the daunting task of trying to remedy the situation amid bureaucratic obstacles. “As you can imagine, every phone call is being put on hold for like 20 minutes or an hour or two hours, and then people being like, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t help you.’ It’s just like a bureaucratic nightmare,” LaRue said. “Every phone call that we make to try to fix the situation is just insane.”
Despite the ordeal, LaRue shared that some progress has been made in apprehending the alleged culprit. However, the impact of the incident has been significant, exacerbated by the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. “It’s just sick and messed up,” the Emmy-winner fumed. “And I mean, the good thing is that they’re circling the wagons around this person. And so he’s going to get caught. But in the meantime, it’s wreaked such havoc for the last four months, like such crazy havoc.”
Amid this personal turmoil, LaRue has remained professionally active. She recently took home an Emmy for outstanding guest performer for her role in “The Young and the Restless,” receiving her nomination just two weeks after Callahan’s death. LaRue has also been hard at work on the Pure Flix original limited series, “Finding Love in Quarantine,” which was filmed entirely in isolation with a skeleton crew.
“I thought it was such a sweet story and it was so topical how we’re all just feeling so lonely and reaching out via social media and Zoom in all of these things – like it was just so topical that I really wanted to do it,” LaRue said of the limited series that also stars Tom Arnold, Stacey Dash, and David White. She expressed enthusiasm for the project, noting the relevance of its themes during the pandemic.
LaRue also reflected on the broader implications of the pandemic on human interaction and the entertainment industry. “It forced people – the great thing about this insane [time] is that I think there’s actually been a lot of interesting positives that have come out of this whole quarantine nightmare,” she explained. “And that was a lot of self-reflection – which normally none of us ever slow down enough to do – and we’ve had an inordinate amount of self-reflection time and more than we’ll probably ever have in our lifetimes again.”
The actress praised the creativity of director Matt Shapira, as well as Tommy Blaze and David White, in bringing the project together under challenging conditions. The filming process involved strict social distancing, with actors working separately to ensure safety. “I didn’t get to work with everyone because of the way we shot it – we were shooting in quarantine. So we literally had – everybody was separate so that we wouldn’t all be on the same set,” LaRue explained.
Reflecting on her experience on “CSI: Miami,” LaRue acknowledged the difficulties of producing such a large-scale show in the current environment. “It’s weird because I mean, everybody’s tentatively coming back if they’re coming back at all because it’s so hard on a regular night – I mean, thankfully, this was a short-form series so we didn’t have to meet,” she said. “But if we tried to come back with ‘CSI: Miami’ – we had 300 people on that show… I don’t know if they could have – we simply couldn’t have done it.”
LaRue empathized with the thousands of workers in Hollywood who found themselves out of jobs due to COVID-19. She highlighted the unprecedented uncertainty facing the industry. “Right now, we’re all really in this crazy limbo of, ‘Will it get better?’ And yes, eventually. But wow. This is the first time in my whole life – maybe in all of our existence – that there is really nothing promised to any of us right now. Period.”