Dancing With the Stars season 35 star Tyler Cameron has opened up about the ongoing grief he has experienced since losing his mother.
Andrea Cameron died in February 2020, two days after she was hospitalized at age 55. Her death was later attributed to a brain aneurysm.
Following her passing, Tyler paid tribute to his mother on social media with photos of his brothers, Austin and Ryan, holding Andrea’s hand in the hospital.
“Today heaven gained an angel,” Tyler wrote on Instagram. “We will love and miss our mother dearly. She will live on through us and through those that she has had an impact on. While we grieve, we ask for two things: First, tell those you love that you love them; and second, please let us take this time to celebrate her life in private. Thank you for all of your love and support.❤️.”
Years after his mother’s death, Tyler stepped into the ballroom on DWTS season 35 with professional partner Sharna Burgess. He soon made it clear that Andrea was the reason he wanted to take on the challenge.
“I mean, mine’s for my mom. You know, this is about honoring her,” Tyler told Us exclusively in September after the premiere. “She would have pushed me to do this show. Right when I got The Bachelorette, she was like, ‘You should go do Dancing With the Stars. You’d be amazing.’”
“So, to be here to do this, I wish she was here watching this because this would have made my mom probably the happiest I could have ever made [her],” Tyler added. “It’s incredible, but I get to do it with this super mom, [Sharna]. I am very honored to be here on her comeback season.”
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The next month, Tyler earned encouragement from the DWTS judging panel after speaking openly about the loss of his mother.
“My mom would be kicking and screaming and yelling. She’d be thrilled,” Cameron told Us after the performance. Burgess also reflected on the emotional moment, saying, “Them [getting] emotional at the judges’ table was making me emotional, and then it was just an emotional thing. I’m just so proud of you, and I’m so glad we got to do that.”
Tyler will continue honoring Andrea during Dedication Night with a performance of Ed Sheeran’s “Supermarket Flowers,” a tribute that will also recognize mothers everywhere. His fiancée, Tate Madden, is set to appear in the routine.
“I lost my mom to a brain aneurysm back in 2020. Just like that, she was gone,” Tyler said in a video posted to the official DWTS Instagram account. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. You never stop going through it. You still grieve even to this day, almost seven years later. It’s going to be an emotional night … This is for the mom’s out there. Not just my mom but for the moms that we love and also the moms that we miss. I’m very excited to do this. This is not just my mom, this is all those important moms because a boy always needs his mom.”
Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.

