Quindon Tarver, a singer who rose to prominence as a child for his role in 1996’s “Romeo + Juliet,” died in a car accident in Texas, according to a report published Sunday. He was 38 years old.
Willie Tarver, the singer’s uncle, told the Daily Beast that the singer crashed into a wall on the President George Bush Turnpike in Dallas early Friday.
Tarver, who was born on August 4, 1982 in McKinney, Texas, began singing in church choirs.
In Baz Luhrmann’s modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, he played a choir boy that sang covers of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and Rozalla’s “Everybody’s Free.”
Tarver told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2017 that his career was halted because he spoke out about being sexually abused as a child in the music business.
“I was hurting. I had been molested, I had been raped, I had lost my career, which is what I had dreamed of doing all my life,” he told the outlet.
Tarver said he struggled with drugs, alcohol, and suicidal thoughts after returning to Texas.
Tarver was welcomed to sing “When Doves Cry” at a Prince tribute in Los Angeles in 2016.
He described the performance as a watershed moment in his life, inspiring him to enter rehab and resume his singing career.
