This Is Us writer, Jas Waters (Hood Adjacent with James Davis, Barbershop), has died at 39 years old, according to Variety. With no information regarding the cause of her death, the news of her passing was confirmed by the series’ writers who shared statement on their official Twitter account Wednesday.
In the statement on Variety, they mention the impact of the writers death on their This Is Us family, and remark her brilliance as a storyteller.
Dan Fogelman, creator of the NBC series, also remarked Waters’ creative radiance in a comment he made on Twitter.
Born in Evanston Illinois, Waters was raised in a retirement home where she lived with her grandparents, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In an interview she did with Shadow and Act in 2018, Waters claimed that “by the time I was 8 or 9, I was like Roger Ebert.” She “had such a grasp on what made a movie good, what made a story good.” Noting her upbringing, she iterated “I’m also a poor Black kid who grew up in an old folks home. So, I understand ground-level life, and I bring that perspective to everything I write”
During her career, Waters was a writer for the second season of This Is Us. She also worked as a columnist for Vibe magazine in 2012, as well as other series on VH1 such as The Gossip Game, The Breaks, Kidding, Hardball, What Men Want and Save the Last Dance.