Is James Talarico a heretic, a demon in human form, the False Prophet of Revelation—or even the Antichrist?

Such descriptions may sound extreme when applied to a soft-spoken, mild-mannered seminarian seeking office in Texas. Yet these questions are being raised not only in the farthest corners of the internet, but in mainstream religious and political debate.

Talarico, 37, has inspired Obama-style enthusiasm among Democrats during his high-profile Senate campaign. Supporters view his faith-centered message as their strongest opportunity to win a Senate seat in the Lone Star State since 1988—and perhaps as the beginning of a future presidential career.

At the same time, his campaign has alienated—and deeply angered—many evangelical Christians, a backlash that could ultimately damage his prospects.

For some voters, the contest against scandal-plagued Republican Ken Paxton represents more than the future balance of the US Senate. It is also viewed as a referendum on the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

By promoting a progressive form of Christianity that critics describe as “woke,” Talarico has become a central target of the religious right.

“I think what he teaches is evil,” Dr Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, a nationally prominent megachurch in Dallas, Texas, told the Daily Mail.

For his critics, the stakes extend well beyond ordinary political differences. They see the conflict as a theological battle rooted in the Bible.

Among Talarico’s most provocative statements are comments that “God is non-binary,” that “Jesus was a radical feminist” and that there are “six genders”—a claim he later walked back.

He has also argued that the Bible does not address abortion directly and suggested that Jesus would have supported universal healthcare.

His support for religious pluralism has drawn perhaps the strongest condemnation. The concept holds that other faiths can be equal to Christianity and that “God” may be another name for Yahweh, Allah or Nirvana.

Jeffress said: “I think if people accept his belief that all religions are the same and there are many ways to Heaven, he is leading people on a road that leads to Hell.

“Respecting people’s right to choose whichever faith they wish does not mean that every choice is correct. Those who teach that all religions are the same are, in my view, denying what Jesus himself said.

“I don’t think [Talarico] is misguided. I think he has made a deliberate choice to embrace error and reject the truth.”

Jeffress said some voters were being “taken in” by Talarico, arguing that his message may sound positive to people unfamiliar with the Bible. “But those who know their Bible know James Talarico is a fraud,” he said.

First Baptist Church does not endorse Senate candidates. However, its 16,000 followers have been encouraged to vote for “righteousness” rather than “unrighteousness” in the midterm election on November 3.

“I don’t know anybody in Texas who is a conservative Christian who’s saying they’re going to vote for James Talarico,” Jeffress said. “They may not vote for Ken Paxton, or they may simply stay home, but they are not going to vote for James Talarico.”

Evangelical voters account for an estimated 25 percent of Texas’ electorate, and opposition to Talarico among that group appears to be widespread.

On one Facebook site with over 250,000 members, a lively discussion kicked off with: ‘James Talarico has the antichrist spirit living in him.’

A YouTube video with tens of thousands of views suggested he should be called ‘555’ because he’s ‘not the Antichrist but man is he getting close,’ going on to explain with a detailed analysis of Scripture why he is a ‘heretic.’

Talarico was born in Round Rock, just outside Austin, Texas in 1989, the year after the Democrats last won a Texas Senate seat.

His name at birth was James Dell Collins but his mother fled from his abusive high-school dropout father, and he later took his stepfather’s last name.

After graduating from Harvard with a Master of Education, he became a middle school language arts teacher back in Texas and was first elected to the state legislature in 2018.

While in the legislature he also became a seminarian, training to become a pastor in the Presbyterian Church and pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Austin Theological Seminary. The degree is currently on hold while he campaigns.

He has made his faith central to his campaign, using the slogan ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’ and regularly quotes Scripture on the stump.

But what he, and Democrats, may regard as his greatest personal and political strength – his faith – is also turning out to be his greatest point of electoral weakness.

In a short space of time, he has built up a greatest hits album of controversial religious statements, including on transgender issues.

During a legislative hearing in 2021, Talarico said: ‘Modern science recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes – in fact, there are six.’

He voted against a Republican bill banning transgender children playing on sports teams aligning with their gender identity, making a reference to the Bible in the process.

And he pledged to ‘defend trans Texans’ every day in office, suggesting that parents who ‘deny their child’s gender identity’ are ‘abusive for sure.’

Another comment that landed badly with many Christians in Texas was that theirs has been the ‘most violent’ religion, having done ‘more damage’ than Islam, according to Talarico.

Talarico also asserted that ‘you can’t call yourself a Christian and destroy God’s creation with greenhouse gases,’ which had many Texans, Christian or not, shaking their heads while they filled their pickups.

During the Black Lives Matter era, he wrote about racism, referring to it as a ‘virus,’ on X: ‘White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go – through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms – like a white hood or a Confederate flag – to be contagious.’

He found an audience, though, repeatedly going viral on TikTok and attracting the attention of national Democrats intrigued by his faith. Republicans have been the unofficial ‘party of God’ since Ronald Reagan.

Here, Democrat strategists dreamed, was an opportunity to take back some of the Christian vote, and in deeply religious Texas. The tactic had already worked in Georgia where the left-wing Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock won a Senate seat in 2021.

Talarico won the support of many young people when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and said: ‘This idea that to be a Christian means you have to be anti-gay and anti-abortion… there really is no historical, theological or biblical basis for that opinion.’

Rogan, an independent based in Texas, was impressed. ‘You need to run for president,’ he said. ‘We need someone who is actually a good person.’

However, Jim Agresti, author of a book about the Bible and president of the Texas-based think tank Just Facts, told the Daily Mail some of what Talarico has said is just flat wrong.

‘Talarico is not just twisting [the Bible], he’s completely perverting it,’ Agresti said.

‘He says that his agenda for universal healthcare, for instance, is Biblical because Jesus didn’t ask for a deductible when he healed the sick. Well, those were volitional acts of Jesus. No place in the Bible do you see anything about giving under the compulsion of government taxation.

‘The Bible has at least 50 passages about giving. None of them involve government handouts.

‘[Talarico] is not promising to give away his own money, which is what Jesus called us to do, but other people’s money.’

Agresti said Talarico’s argument that the Bible was silent on abortion was ‘absurd,’ and he was ‘Biblically illiterate.’

As for Talarico’s motivations, Agresti said: ‘I can’t read his mind, I don’t know what’s in his heart, that’s between him and God, but I do know that Jesus warned us to watch out for false prophets. He’s butchering the Bible.

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‘That is extremely damaging to people on a spiritual level, and especially in a Biblically illiterate culture where a lot of people don’t read the Bible.’

In a high-profile CNN town hall on Wednesday, Talarico walked back some of his more controversial positions.

He explained that, when he said, ‘God is non-binary,’ he was ‘being provocative’ and he meant that ‘we can’t define God using human categories,’ which many others, including the late Charlie Kirk, had also said.

However, following a lengthy explanation of why he believes the Bible does not talk about abortion, he was challenged by a Catholic voter.

‘I just want to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion,’ said audience member Jody Hunt. ‘There is the Ten Commandments, thou shall not kill.’

He responded to Hunt: ‘If I believed that abortion was murder, that it violated the Ten Commandments, then I wouldn’t support it, and so it’s OK that you and I come to different conclusions about that.’ 

Talarico has also called his previous statements ‘cringey.’ Last month, he told Fox News he does not believe there are six sexes and that transgender athletes should not be allowed in school sports ‘if it endangers safety or fairness.’

However, his opponent Paxton is still running TV adverts suggesting Talarico is ‘they/them, not you,’ and highlighting his vote against a Texas bill that banned gender-transition treatments for minors.

In a statement, the Talarico campaign said: ‘These ads are lies. As James has said, he opposes gender reassignment surgery for minors.

‘Billionaire-backed dark money groups are lying about James because they’re scared of the people-powered movement we’re building to fix this broken, corrupt political system.’

Some of the progressive positions Talarico has taken over the years echo those of pastors at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, which he has attended since he was two years old.

As he moderates some of those positions, last month, undercover video footage published by The Daily Wire showed a pastor at the church, Babs Miller, saying: ‘I can guarantee you that, once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was.’

In comments that stunned evangelical Christians, Miller also said that ‘We have no way of knowing if Jesus really existed’ and ‘the virgin birth comes out of the pagan belief.’

Meanwhile, Republicans poured scorn on Talarico’s ‘nice guy’ image.

Steve Toth, a Republican candidate for Congress who served with Talarico in the Texas legislature, called him an ‘angry little man’ and the ‘darkest soul I’ve ever met.’

Amid it all, the baby-faced Talarico has unexpectedly become a national focal point for the midterms, and perhaps the biggest bane of the entire election for Republicans.

Texas was not supposed to be competitive after Trump won it by 14 points in 2024.

With the Senate currently held 53 to 47 by Republicans, a Talarico victory could end up tipping control to Democrats, which would mean Trump being embroiled in congressional investigations for the final two years of his presidency.

Consequently, Republicans are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in to boost Paxton, widely viewed as an imperfect candidate, and an imperfect man. The state attorney general has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity over the years.

At the end of September, Talarico was struck down with flu, taking him off the trail for nine days. By the time he resurfaced at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, where he was seen greeting fans, there had been calls for ‘proof of life’ as rumors ran rampant.

It was a measure of his opponents’ desperation to stop him that his illness led to a conspiracy theory that he was being treated at a mental health facility.

A viral recording of a woman answering the phone at a facility in Ohio, and saying Talarico had been discharged, received over six million views on X. It was later debunked.

During the CNN town hall, Talarico said: ‘I opened up social media and learned that I apparently had dropped out of the race, had flown to a mental hospital in Ohio, that I had died… this is crazy.’

He blamed the ‘rage economy,’ adding: ‘They get clicks. The billionaires who own these platforms get rich. We all get angry, and nobody’s life gets any better. Conspiracy theories don’t put food on the table.’

During the increasingly vicious race, Talarico has faced a barrage of attacks from Republicans, with Paxton calling him ‘Low-T Talarico’ and ‘Six-Gender Jimmy.’

At one point, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Democrats had ‘made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender Senate candidate,’ a dig at Talarico’s positions on transgender rights.

Last week, Republicans played their biggest card as President Trump himself arrived in Texas on Air Force One.

On stage in San Antonio, Trump erroneously suggested Talarico had got sick because he was a vegan, which he isn’t.

‘He’s sick because he’s forced to eat meat for political reasons and he’s throwing up all over the place,’ said Trump.

That drew a response from a Talarico spokesperson, who insisted: ‘James is not vegan.’

Talarico’s surge in red Texas comes after Beto O’Rourke came close to winning a Senate seat in 2018, falling by 2.6 percentage points to Ted Cruz.

Talarico currently leads Paxton by 3.6 percentage points in an average of polls.

However, in recent days, a UMass Lowell/YouGov poll had them tied.

‘With the race tied, anything can happen between now and the election,’ said John Cluverius, associate professor of political science at UMass Lowell.

‘Texas, a once-reliable rock, is starting to show some cracks. The last time Democrats won a US Senate race in Texas, Ken Paxton didn’t yet have a law degree and James Talarico wasn’t even born.’

The importance of the evangelical vote cannot be overstated.

In 2024, 82 percent of white evangelicals backed Trump, and he won only 40 percent among other voters.

Talarico has invested $25 million in reaching Black voters, who make up over 13 percent of the state population and could propel him over the finish line, appearing frequently in front of Black church hall audiences.

In a recent Fox News poll, Talarico won 79 percent of Black voters, along with 64 percent of Hispanic voters and 62 percent of people aged under 35. However, Paxton had 74 percent of white evangelical Christians.

And, with his faith-based approach to reaching Black voters, Talarico is swimming against the tide

In 2020, only 10 percent of the members of the largely Black National Baptist Convention voted for Trump but by 2024 that had increased dramatically to 29 percent.

And, in Texas, 22 percent of voters are Catholic, and many will vote Republican purely on the basis of Talarico’s stance on abortion.

Democrats are getting increasingly nervous.

One pollster told the Daily Mail: ‘Talarico is doing much better than Beto. Beto never led a single poll that was independent and nonpartisan, whereas Talarico leads them all virtually.

‘You could say that’s because you have that silent Trump vote… especially in Texas, that’ll come out (on Election Day.) That might be the case. There’s no way to tell because they won’t talk to pollsters.’

Regular readers know I keep a running list of public figures whose conduct catches my attention. I work through it at my own pace, sometimes publishing the column and sometimes filing it away after the lawyers make their feelings clear.

My targets are usually celebrities and influencers whose behaviour is so grating or outrageous that ignoring it becomes impossible.

That brings me back, for the third time in three months, to Constance Hall — the woman who has crowned herself the ‘queen’ of something or other. Her relationship with Denim Cooke has been so turbulent that even a notoriously awkward QF433 Sydney-to-Melbourne landing would seem calm by comparison.

Yet I have to confess that I’m beginning to warm to Connie, despite the 12-minute Facebook tirade she directed at me after I described Denz as ‘feral’.

I am not one to hold a grudge. I also admire people who appear genuine, and in an online world filled with Instagram mothers whose children, homes, cars and husbands seem to come in matching shades of beige, Constance has always felt strangely authentic.

There is a reason she has built an audience of 1.2 million on Facebook. For 11 years, she has been one of the defining figures of the mummy-blogger era. You may love her or dislike her, but her ability to remain relevant is difficult to dispute.

The mother of six is chaotic, outspoken and apparently unable — or unwilling — to keep much of her personal life offline. Oddly enough, that is part of her appeal. I suspect we might even get along, provided she can one day forgive me for my comments about her husband.

It is her marriage to Denim, however, that I have never quite understood. After writing two columns about what I saw as their toxic dynamic, I believed I had exhausted the subject. The incident involving a rescue lorikeet Constance was attempting to nurse back to health felt, to me, like the final breaking point.

I had made my argument twice, annoyed some of her supporters and promised myself I would leave the subject alone. There are, after all, plenty of other celebrities capable of irritating me.

Then she did it again. On Tuesday, Constance uploaded another 11-minute video — one I almost skipped. I wondered what could possibly remain to discuss. As it turned out, quite a lot. This time, instead of simply rolling my eyes and reaching for my notebook, I felt something I had not expected: sympathy.

I am not suddenly going soft. But for the first time, I thought I saw the bravado fall away. The loud, defiant online persona was briefly replaced by someone who looked exhausted, isolated and profoundly sad.

This time, Constance opened by confronting her own audience — a particularly daring decision when those same followers are central to the success of her brand.

She was angry about the ongoing calls for her to leave Denim after ‘Birdgate’. After 11 years of documenting her life online, she said she had reached her limit with female followers whom she labelled ‘misogynists disguised as feminists’ because they wanted her to end the relationship.

The comments that prompted her frustration included messages such as: ‘Bird killer still around then?’, ‘Didn’t your husband kill a bird for no reason?’ and simply, ‘Leave him.’

The message was clear: many of her followers appear to have reached the end of their patience.

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But the most affecting moment came when Constance began to cry. Through the tears, she said: ‘I have this one person who helps me deal with my six kids and two dogs.’

And that person is Denim, the bird killer.

Honestly? That’s where she got me.

For the first time, I wasn’t watching a loud, gobby blogger defiantly standing up for herself; I was watching a defeated woman who sounded frightened of being on her own.

She said she has one person, just one person, to help her deal with her family.

And that was the saddest part of the video: the fact she thinks the feral Denim, who killed a rescue bird with his own hands despite Constance pleading with him not to, is truly her only option.

Now, I’ve known enough women in unhappy marriages who are too scared to leave: for financial reasons, fear of starting again, the kids. Women who convince themselves they can’t possibly manage without their partners. One friend stays with her cheating husband because she ‘has anxiety’ and he is her ‘safety person’.

Hm, so safe he can’t keep it in his pants. She has decided staying is easier than leaving, even when staying comes at the cost of her mental health. Now she’s an anorexic, pill-popping alcoholic mess – all because she thinks staying in a toxic marriage is better than being alone.

I just don’t get it. The loneliest I’ve ever felt was lying back-to-back with a man I no longer loved, who no longer loved me. I left. Hard yes, but not as hard as staying.

Here’s what I can’t get past: Constance built her career on female empowerment – championing strength, independence and rejecting judgement.

Yet when her own loyal followers question her choices, refuse to be gaslit about her marriage, she doesn’t hear their genuine concern – only sees betrayal.

That’s the crux of it: Constance urges women to speak up, but only so long as they don’t question her.

Connie, you can’t spend more than a decade profiting from sharing your life, then turn around and call the very women who made you successful ‘misogynists’ simply because they urge you to leave your husband.

You told them to be outspoken and fearless. Don’t try to silence them just because you don’t like what they’re saying now.

You built an empire telling women they deserve better. It’s time to believe that yourself.

Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced Friday that he is leaving the agency, an abrupt move following a string of high-profile security failures and a surge in threats targeting the president.

His resignation comes roughly two years after the assassination attempt against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The incident was later described by then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle as the agency’s “most significant operational failure in decades.” It also follows a shooting at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

‘Today I informed the men and women of the Secret Service that I will be transitioning out of my role as Deputy Director,’ Quinn said in a social media post Friday. 

“Director Curran and I have been working on a thoughtful transition plan for months now,” he added.

“Proud of the men & women of the USSS and all your accomplishments!”

Quinn, a veteran Secret Service agent, retired in 2021 after 23 years with the agency. He returned last May to serve as deputy director.

His departure follows scrutiny over comments he made in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday on CBS News.

Speaking with Norah O’Donnell, Quinn said drone swarms represent “a huge problem” and a “big threat” to the Secret Service, including at heavily secured locations such as the White House.

“I’d love to tell you the swarm problem is solved. It’s not,” Quinn said, while emphasizing that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue remains relatively safe.

The segment showed Curran and Quinn demonstrating the agency’s counter-drone equipment, including technology that combines artificial intelligence with radar systems.

During the interview, both Quinn and Secret Service Director Sean Curran faced questions about the agency’s broader struggle to keep pace with a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Curran acknowledged that the current environment was unlike anything the agency had previously encountered.

Since January, the Secret Service has handled about 10,000 threat cases involving its protectees, Curran said. That represents a 40 percent increase over the same period last year.

Quinn’s exit comes as the agency confronts a sustained rise in security threats, including drone-related incidents and plots targeting President Donald Trump.

Over the past year, those threats have included an alleged drone attack plot at the UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn in July, which the Secret Service and FBI foiled. They also included a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, in April.

Additional threats against the president were reported at his Florida golf course and during a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In that incident, a gunman fired eight rounds from the roof of a nearby building, striking then-candidate Trump in the ear.

A report released in June by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that the Secret Service missed “multiple” chances to identify, stop or disrupt the Butler gunman before the attack.

“Do we recognize the threat environment has increased? Absolutely,” Quinn told O’Donnell.

“How we do it and how we change—that’s where we prefer to stay, in [the] background,” he said.

Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte spent years privately urging Hollywood to create more opportunities for disabled actors, while sharing his heartbreak over being passed over for roles despite appearing in one of television’s most acclaimed dramas.

In dozens of text messages obtained by the Daily Mail, Mitte spoke openly about the obstacles he faced as an actor with cerebral palsy and questioned why the entertainment industry remained hesitant to cast performers with disabilities.

Mitte, who died Monday at 34, repeatedly emphasized his determination to keep working, create his own projects and challenge what he viewed as Hollywood’s failure to recognize the talents of disabled performers.

Sent to a longtime friend over an eight-year period, the messages portray a passionate, sometimes frustrated advocate who wanted to be assessed for his talent rather than his physical condition.

In a message dated April 7, 2017, Mitte recalled several uncomfortable experiences with casting directors.

‘When I go for a part, they sometimes tell me that it’s not a character with a disability, and I’m like why can’t the character be disabled?’ he wrote.

‘They get real uncomfortable when I say that.’

He argued that casting a disabled actor could bring greater depth to a role without making the character’s entire story about disability.

That distinction mattered to Mitte, who had already shown his range as Walter White Jr., the son of Bryan Cranston’s meth-dealing chemistry teacher on AMC’s critically acclaimed series Breaking Bad.

A source close to Cranston told the Daily Mail that the actor was ‘heartbroken’ and was still processing Mitte’s death.

The series aired from 2008 to 2013 and made Mitte one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors with a disability.

Yet Mitte was frustrated that his teenage breakthrough had not led to the range of opportunities he expected.

‘I can do any role, but some of [the casting agents and directors] are a**h***s who won’t even look at me,’ he wrote in another message in April 2017.

‘I want to put them on blast, but I won’t now.’

He continued to audition and take on acting work, including productions filmed outside the United States.

In December 2017, Mitte revealed that he had worked on a television pilot that ultimately was not picked up.

‘Worked on a pilot that didn’t go, a few months ago. Brutal biz,’ he wrote.

Two years later, after finishing an independent film in Australia, he acknowledged how difficult it could be to sustain a career in the unpredictable entertainment industry.

‘I did a job in Sydney, and it was fun,’ he wrote in February 2019.

‘But it’s a film not going to be here, it’s Australian, I hope I can find stuff here. I would like to work enough to keep my [health] insurance. Pain in the ass lol.’

When the entertainment industry shut down in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Mitte continued looking for opportunities. 

In June 2020, he described completing a project in Canada and doing voice work.

The following day, he expressed interest in obtaining additional publicity to remind casting directors that he was available for hire.

‘I’ve got to figure out more work,’ he wrote. ‘I need to keep myself relevant lol.’ 

He then offered to participate in video interviews and other promotional opportunities.

‘I just need to remind people to book me.’

By March 2021, Mitte believed the pandemic had created another obstacle for disabled performers, complaining that some people in the entertainment industry appeared to regard actors with disabilities as greater health or insurance risks.

‘Gotta convince people that I’m not going to die of Covid,’ he wrote.

‘There’s a backlash about people with disabilities, they think that we can’t be insured or that we are going to die in the middle of a scene, its bullshit.

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Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age three, Mitte wore leg braces and sometimes used crutches or a wheelchair throughout childhood. By adulthood, the most noticeable effects were on his left hand and his speech.

He became a prominent advocate for greater inclusion in entertainment, serving as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children’s.

Mitte argued that disabled actors deserved opportunities both in front of and behind the camera, and that television audiences should see people with disabilities portrayed in ordinary, multifaceted roles.

In 2016, he publicly challenged the industry to expand its representation beyond occasional disability-focused storylines.

‘I would love to switch on my TV and see a disabled person talking about something they are genuinely interested in or acting out a part that doesn’t just focus on their impairment,’ he said.

His private messages reveal that the issue remained deeply personal.

In April 2022, shortly after turning 30, Mitte complained to his friend that some of the scripts he was receiving offered little more than tokenism.

‘Looking for interesting stuff to do, getting a lot of scripts where I would be a prop and they don’t want to give any depth, 3 lines if that,’ he wrote. ‘I’m writing my own s**t now.’

Four months later, he expressed renewed frustration with the scarcity of on-screen opportunities. ‘Just doing animation, no one wants me on screen.. it’s annoying as f***.’

As recently as July 2025, he was considering a new challenge: reality television.

In messages to his friend, Mitte said he had softened to the idea of appearing in a competition series that would allow him to demonstrate his abilities to an audience that might know him primarily from Breaking Bad.

He specifically mentioned Dancing with the Stars, saying that participating in the show could challenge assumptions about what performers with cerebral palsy were capable of.

But he was adamant that any appearance should preserve his dignity rather than turn his disability into a spectacle.

‘Now I would do a good reality show, was thinking that dancing would be a good fit, just to show that I can do that s***,’ he wrote.

‘But I would have to make sure that any reality would be dignity, I don’t want to be laughed at, but would consider something that could give me a platform.’

His private messages show that he believed there were many more characters he could play, stories he could tell and assumptions he could challenge.

‘There’s a lot I could do, if given the chance,’ another text read.

Mitte’s frustrations with Hollywood remained present as recently as last week when he appeared on The Joe Vulpis Podcast, where he suggested he only got the Breaking Bad role because the character was based on a real person with cerebral palsy.

‘I think casting individuals with disabilities is very tricky,’ Mitte said.

‘My character was written with someone with [cerebral] palsy [in mind]. That was from the beginning. That was always the case.

‘My character Walt Junior was based on a real person, a friend [Director] Vince [Gilligan] had in college who had cerebral palsy, who used forearm crutches and sometime after passed away.

‘And so it really felt real playing this character and getting into the groove with this character.’

In a tragic twist, Mitte was set to star in the upcoming movie Forgotten Outlaw, a Western about the life of Bub Meeks, a childhood friend of notorious outlaw Butch Cassidy. He was cast as the lead.

Director Nik Tizekker told TMZ tonight he plans to move forward with the project to honor the late actor’s wishes, which will mean eventually finding a new leading man.

Mitte died Monday in Brownsville, Texas, where he lived with his fiancée, Kennedy Suarez. TMZ reported, citing a county official, that his death was a suicide and that an investigation was ongoing.

He had proposed to Suarez in October 2025 at a charity event benefiting United Cerebral Palsy.

In a statement following his death, his representative remembered him as a beloved actor, philanthropist and passionate disability rights advocate who used his platform to promote awareness and inclusion.

A source close to his Breaking Bad co-star Bryan Cranston told the Daily Mail: ‘Bryan needs some time to process the heartbreaking loss of RJ. Throughout his career, he has been incredibly fortunate to work alongside so many talented people who have portrayed his children, but his time with RJ on Breaking Bad will always hold an especially meaningful place in his heart,’ they said.

‘The bond they shared, both on and off screen, is something he will never forget. The Breaking Bad cast has always been more than just a group of co-stars to Bryan; they are family. 

‘And as someone who was at the center of that family, seeing one of their own gone is absolutely devastating. He’s still trying to find the right words to express what RJ meant to him, but right now, he’s still processing the loss, remembering the incredible person RJ was and simply feeling obviously heartbroken. 

‘Bryan hadn’t seen RJ in some time, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t always thinking about him, it is just a really sad day.’