Featured Image Credit: CBC
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity, Instagram, News
Niamh Shackleton
The world is mourning the loss of Catherine O'Hara, who died aged 71 on January 30, 2026.
O'Hara was known for starring in the likes of Home Alone, Beetlejuice, Waiting for Guffman, and Second City Television, as well as her more recent roles in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Last of Us, and The Studio.
But, arguably, one of her best roles was in the well-loved sitcom Schitt's Creek, where she played the ever-iconic Moira Rose.
The series ran for six seasons between 2015 and 2020 and boasts an impressive 93 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes (both from the audience and from critics).
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It originally aired on CBC Television before Hulu and Netflix later acquired the streaming rights in the US and UK.
In the wake of her heartbreaking death, her Schitt's Creek castmates have wasted no time paying their respects to the legendary actress, with Eugene Levy – her on-screen husband, Johnny Rose, and a friend of many, many years – leading them.
In a moving statement shared with US Weekly, the American Pie alum said: "Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today. I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine O’Hara for over fifty years.
"From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on Schitt’s Creek, I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship."
Other projects they starred in together include Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration.
Levy concluded his message saying how much he'd miss O'Hara and he sent his thoughts to her husband, Bo Welch, and their two sons, Matthew and Luke.
Hampshire, who starred as the melancholy Stevie Budd in Schitt's Creek, said in a tear-jerking Instagram post that she found it 'impossible' to believe that O'Hara had died.
"There was no one more alive than Catherine. She filled every moment with more life than most of us expend in days," she wrote.
"I was lucky enough to work with her at the beginning of my career. She was just as kind and generous then as she was after six years of working together on Schitt’s. That’s simply who she was with everyone.
"So pathologically kind and generous that it inevitably seeped into her characters. I think that’s why you can’t help but love Moira’s blind narcissism—it’s carried by something deeply human underneath."
Hampshire went on to say that she'd 'cherish' every moment she had with O'Hara.
O'Hara's on-screen daughter Murphy took to Instagram to describe O'Hara's laugh as 'perpetual'.
"It challenged anyone who heard it to join in, and be as delighted as she was," the Black Mirror actress continued. "Gosh, were we ever lucky to have her."
Murphy also alluded that she saw her late co-star as a teacher and shared a screenshot of some notes she made of the 'Coles Notes' she learnt from O'Hara.
Eugene Levy's son Dan, who co-wrote Schitt's Creek with his father as well as starred in it as David Rose, described O'Hara as 'extended family'.
"What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years," his moving post read.
Going on to note the years of work she did with his dad, Levy said: "Having spent over fifty years collaborating with my Dad, Catherine was extended family before she ever played my family.
"It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her."
Reid played David Rose's love interest, Patrick Brewer, and made his debut in Schitt's Creek in season 3 of the sitcom.
In his tribute to O'Hara, he recalled what it was like meeting the actress for the first time and working with her.
"Meeting Catherine was surreal, like meeting a painting or a hologram or a saint," he penned.
"Working with Catherine was an elevation, an understanding that there was collaboration in competition, that there were secret ways of knowing and doing that she was willing to share, and that there was humour and magic in everything. Knowing Catherine was a gift I still can’t believe I got to receive."
He proceeded to describe O'Hara as being 'the coolest, kindest, realest, funniest, [and] most genuine', as well as 'an electrical current of creativity I haven’t seen before or since'.