R.I.P. Lee Thompson Young of The Famous Jett Jackson and Friday Night Lights
TMZ is reporting that Lee Thompson Young—best known for the title role on Disney Channel series The Famous Jett Jackson—was found dead this morning of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. For the past four seasons, Young had appeared as a main character on TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles. When he didn’t show up for work, producers phoned his landlord to check on him, after which his body was discovered. Young was 29.
The Famous Jett Jackson was one of Disney Channel’s first hit series under the network's rebranded original programming arm when it began in 1998. It centered on a child actor who moves production of his hit spy show Silverstone from Los Angeles to North Carolina, in order to be closer to his estranged father. As a child actor from the south raised in a single-parent home, it was a role Young understood well enough, he even co-wrote an episode in its second season. Over the years, the show had guest-starring roles from Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, and Eartha Kitt, and its popularity eventually led to Young co-starring in Johnny Tsunami, one of the defining films of the Disney Channel Original Movie boom in 1999.