RJ Mitte died on Monday in Brownsville, Texas, at 34, and Aaron Paul answered the news with a tribute that landed like a private goodbye made public. Paul said the last time they saw each other, he kept calling Mitte Superman.
That is why Dean Norris is showing up in searches now: the death of a familiar Breaking Bad face is being met not with silence, but with a co-star’s raw remembrance. Paul wrote that he was sorry Mitte was hurting and said he wished they had known, a line that gives the loss its sharpest edge.
Mitte was best known for playing Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad, the role that made him widely recognized and remained with him throughout the show’s run from 2008 to 2013. He had been diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy when he was three years old and later received the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award in 2013, a marker of how his work and visibility reached beyond the series itself.
Paul’s tribute did not read like a polished remembrance. He shared a video of Mitte speaking about mental health, including the lines, “I would like to talk to you a little about mental health” and “It’s okay to be not always good.” In the same post, Paul said Mitte constantly had a smile on his face and met every challenge with confidence and grace, but the representative’s account of suicide turns that image into something more troubling than a simple celebration of resilience.
That gap matters. Mitte often spoke publicly about mental health and about the importance of caring for it alongside physical health, and Paul ended his tribute by urging people to hold each other up and connect with someone they love. The harshest fact here is also the plainest one: a man known for strength, kindness and an easy laugh is gone at 34, and the conversation around his death now runs through both grief and the need to use support that already exists.
