Inside RJ Mitte's devastating final days: Tormented Breaking Bad star was 'nearly broke'... and thought his fiancée deserved 'someone better'

In a final interview days before his death, Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte made a heartbreaking admission: he could barely bring himself to watch the show that made him famous.

The actor, diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age three, said seeing himself play Walter White Jr opposite Bryan Cranston could send him into a mental 'spiral' whenever he spotted a mistake – revealing: 'I dwell in it.'

Yet even without watching it, he conceded he was still chasing the shadow of one of television's most celebrated dramas. 'I want to top Breaking Bad,' he said in a final interview on October 5. 

'That's the hardest... I set a bar for myself as a young man that is kind of unobtainable. And I tell people, it's a long way down from the top of the mountain.'

Five days later, the actor died by suicide at age 34 in Brownsville, Texas. 

Now, friends of the star are revealing the true depth of his despair. 

Convinced he'd never repeat the success he'd enjoyed as a teenager, Mitte was, our sources say, panicked over his future, and how he might pay for it.  

'RJ couldn't continue his struggle any longer,' said one insider close to the star. 

'It took its toll on him mentally. There was almost always a dark cloud hanging over him.'

They added: 'His inner circle had been worried he'd do something like this for a long time. It was hanging over him 24/7.'

A separate source claimed Mitte's money troubles had cast a shadow over his wedding plans with fiancée Kennedy Suarez. 

'RJ was nearly broke, he had severe financial problems and was struggling to afford to pay for a nice wedding to his fiancée, and that broke his heart,' they told us. 

The actor’s financial woes dated back to his teenage years, when, aged around 17 or 18 and after three years working on Breaking Bad, he hired a business manager to handle his earnings and taxes. 

He'd joined the show at 14 years old when it began in 2007, earning the Screen Actors Guild minimum for the pilot episode. As it grew in popularity, so did the cast's earnings. Mitte once estimated he'd made between $3 million and $5 million from the series. 

But instead of paying the IRS, Mitte's manager allegedly pocketed the money and sent him forged tax filings instead. 

Mitte was later hit with a tax bill from the IRS that wiped out his earnings and lumbered him with a debt that took nearly a decade to pay off. 

'It really ruined him,' said the insider.

Filming the show had once offered him respite from the stress, especially, the sources said, when he was on-set with Cranston. 

'When he was working with Cranston in particular, it gave him a big lift. You could see it in his face. His spirit was strong,' said our insider. 

But when the series ended in 2013, he had nowhere to escape to and for Mitte, the industry quickly became a source of frustration and angst. 

'As soon as he finished his final episode, his downward spiral started,' the insider said. 'He kept saying he'd never get another role anywhere near as good.'

Indeed, in a text dated April 7, 2017, obtained by the Daily Mail, Mitte described uncomfortable encounters 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.'

Mitte believed casting an actor with a disability could add depth to a character without requiring the entire storyline to revolve around his disability.

'He hated auditioning and being judged,' said the insider close to Mitte. 'Although he was a big talent, he always felt his disability got in the way. He often thought he was getting auditions out of sympathy.'

After Breaking Bad, Mitte found himself fighting for roles in smaller productions.

Parts such as his appearance on Switched at Birth or his voice and live-action work in The Guardians of Justice gave him steady, respected acting jobs – but they aired on niche or smaller platforms compared to AMC's prime-time juggernaut.

Much of his highest-profile work after the show was outside traditional acting entirely – serving as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and pushing for better representation of disabled actors in Hollywood.

'I can do any role, but some of [the casting agents and directors] are a******* 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.'

As recently as July 2025, Mitte was considering a return to the spotlight via reality television, telling a friend he had softened to the idea of appearing on a show like Dancing with the Stars to challenge assumptions about what performers with cerebral palsy could do. 

Our source said: 'He became more and more bitter about the industry. He's been in a very dark place for a long time.' 

Friends say part of that bitterness stemmed from money – and his belief that acting had never paid him what he believed a lifelong career should have.

'RJ was angry he could not make enough money in acting,' said our second insider.

'He had started at a young age and acted his whole life, so he didn’t understand why the roles were not better. RJ wanted to be a big star. He wanted a nice house, but he never got it. He had to live modestly.’

The source believes Mitte may have earned far more had he pursued modeling.

'He probably would have had way more money if he had just modeled,' they said. 'He made good money modeling for Gap and Vivienne Westwood, and he had the handsome face for it, but he wanted to act.'

Even a bright spot in his life, his relationship with fiancée Suarez, whom he proposed to in 2025, could not fully lift the cloud.

Suarez works in human resources remotely and would frequently travel with Mitte to work with him on different endeavors in his career.

He proposed in October 2025, not long after her 30th birthday. 

'Happy birthday to my everything, you are so amazing,' he said. 'I can't believe all the things we do together, you make me better and want to be better!!!'

Yet according to our first insider, the mental struggle and feelings of inadequacy soon began to take over.

'Although he and his fiancée Kennedy were in the middle of planning their wedding, he thought she deserved someone better. He didn't think he was good enough.

'He'd been in and out of therapy for years. Sadly, all the treatment didn't help in the end.'

Our other source added: 'This kid had so many struggles. He got a bad break in life.' 

Despite his private turmoil, Mitte managed to put on a brave face in his final days.

At his final red-carpet appearance – the premiere of his movie Talking to Strangers at Beverly Hills’ Fine Arts Theatre on September 30 – he flashed a Hollywood smile for the cameras.

Eight days before his death, he made his final public appearance alongside Breaking Bad co-star Luis Moncada, 49, at a hot air balloon festival in New Mexico.

To those watching, he seemed to be coping. But those closest to him say the struggle had never truly gone away.

In an emotional interview with TMZ on Tuesday, Moncada described his final moments with Mitte and acknowledged that he had been ‘struggling’ and ‘pulled in all kinds of directions’, though he declined to elaborate out of respect for his friend.

News of his death has left his inner circle reeling – none more so than his former on-screen father.

Cranston, 70, said he is ‘in deep despair’ after Mitte’s passing, sharing a heartbreaking Instagram tribute: ‘I’ll miss you, son.’

The actor said it was ‘especially devastating’ that Mitte ‘took his own life’, revealing that the pair had recently been texting and making plans to meet for lunch.

'I don't know if that lunch would have changed his future,' Cranston lamented.

For those who loved him, the question lingers: Was there more that could have been done – or was the battle simply one he could no longer fight?

'He's at peace now, if that's any consolation for Kennedy and all those who loved him,' said the insider. 

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Mitte for comment.