How Disney’s Dove Cameron found happily ever after with Måneskin frontman Damiano David after the brutal murder of her best friend, her dad’s suicide and a depression battle

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1h ago

By CAROLINE PEACOCK, SHOWBUSINESS REPORTER 19:27 10 Oct 2026, updated 19:27 10 Oct 2026

After years of heartbreak, loss, and growing up in the unforgiving spotlight, Dove Cameron has finally found her happily ever after.

The actress, 30, tied the knot with Måneskin frontman Damiano David in a legal ceremony in Tuscany last month.

The pair were seen sharing a kiss on the steps of the town hall while being showered with confetti by their loved ones.

But before the picture-perfect wedding came a dark chapter for the Disney star.

The star was just eight years old when she lost her childhood friend Hayley in one of the most traumatic ways.

Hayley and her sister Kelsey were killed by their father in a tragic murder-suicide.

She recalled the day she learned what had happened to her friend while appearing on the Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy podcast earlier this year.

She told that she had been sick and stayed home from school, picking up the landline to listen to a conversation between her parents and her principal.

The actress recalled her pre-school principal Janice telling her parents on the other line: ‘This is going to be a really, really disturbing call. Hayley and Kelsey are gone. Steve is gone and he took the girls with him.’

‘I was very very very very very disturbed by knowing someone for all that time and being raised around them and then realising that they are capable of doing something so harrowing.’

Her friend’s death, she said, ‘fissured’ her brain, affecting how she processes things, despite her parents’ best efforts to get her a therapist.

‘I still have issues,’ said Dove, who admitted she ‘rarely talks about’ her friend’s death.

The event would be the catalyst for what would become her years-long battle with depression and anxiety – and only the first in a string of devastations in her personal life.

On the podcast, she also detailed her father Philip Alan Hosterman’s battle with depression and bipolar disorder.

Dove explained that her dad was not a ‘love match’ with her mum and suggested he was ‘at the very least, not straight’.

By the time she turned 14, her parents divorced, and she moved to Los Angeles with her mum, Bonnie Wallace.

It was there that she landed her breakthrough role on the Disney Channel as twin sisters Liv and Maddie Rooney on the show Liv and Maddie, which premiered in 2013.

During this time, she was also attending Burbank High School in California.

However, her schooling experience was far from smooth sailing as she experienced severe bullying.

Recalling the painful time during an interview with Yahoo Parenting, she said: ‘Once a group of girls locked me in the janitor’s closet. Another time a girl spilt chocolate milk down a dress I made.

‘Girls would try to trip me in the hallway.

‘Once in high school, on a field trip away from school, some girls brought razors to shave their legs and threw them at me and told me to kill myself.

‘But they were all insecure, they were angry, snapping at everybody. It was so obvious.’

And then she was hit with another tragedy: the loss of her father.

Dove recalled sensing ‘something bad going on’ with her dad when he visited them in Los Angeles, and, just months after his return to Washington, they got a phone call that he had taken his life.

As a result, she said she suffered from ‘full panic attacks’ while working on Liv and Maddie.

Navigating newfound fame while also grieving the death of her father had a serious effect on her mental health, she previously told Armchair Expert host Dax Shepard.

‘There was so much going on in my personal life,’ the actress said last year. ‘That’s going to affect any kid. When you’re 15 and that happens, it changes the course of your life.’

During that time, she said she also struggled to understand her father’s death.

‘There was no way for me to wrap my head around it. Understand it, conceptualize it,’ she added.

‘We were at his funeral, and then like, on Bainbridge Island. And then a couple months later, I was at The Grove with people asking me to sign glossies. I didn’t know how to really reconcile with that.’

In 2016, Dove and her ex-fiancé Ryan McCartan split after three years together, having met on the set of Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie.

Announcing the split on X, Ryan wrote: ‘Dove has decided this relationship isn’t what she wants. We still love each other very much. Please be sensitive, as this is painful.’

But years later, Ryan accused Dove of cheating on him and leaving him shortly after their engagement during an Instagram Story Q&A.

He added that he channelled his anger and sadness into positivity, and it was his ‘proudest’ moment.

He wrote: ‘Within two weeks, my fiancée cheated on [me] and left me. I almost died from food poisoning, and Donald Trump was elected president.

‘I truly didn’t think I would be able to make it through that part of my life.

‘I’m proudest of the light that came from that darkness, and my ability to survive and turn the anger and sadness I had into positive life changes and a new way forward.’

While he did not specifically name Dove, fans all pointed the finger at her, as it was the only relationship they had known he had been engaged in.

Dove seemingly responded to the infidelity accusations as she took to X and retweeted a quote that said: ‘When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you.

‘The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth, just like you did.’

In 2019, Dove’s Descendants co-star Cameron Boyce died at the age of 20 while asleep at his home in Los Angeles as a result of a seizure.

His family said at the time that the seizure was brought on by an ‘ongoing medical condition’.

Following his death, Cameron shared an emotional video paying tribute to her close friend and co-star.

‘Cameron was always good and kind,’ she said in the clip.

‘He was selfless and generous, he was magnanimous and arguably a true philanthropist at only 20. Beloved by anyone who had ever been lucky enough to experience his light and indescribable energy. Cameron was the ultimate example of a human being,’ she continued.

‘The last 72 hours have felt like two weeks and I’ve spent them trying to make my thoughts and feelings into words that might communicate anything about what I’m feeling,’ Cameron shared. ‘I’ve been unsuccessful… my system is still in shock and my brain is still foggy and full of holes.’

‘Cameron was one of my favorite people alive in the world, though I know that’s not unique to me,’ she added. ‘Cameron was magic – an earth angel.’

The actress explained how her co-star was always a loyal and caring friend to her, including how he ‘talked [her] down from countless ledges, got [her] through eating disorders, helped [her] out of a dark relationship and through endless breakdowns’.

She called Cameron ‘undoubtedly the most talented person most of us will ever know’, concluding her video, ‘What a gift you were, you turned the world on its head. We can all only hope to be half of the human that you were – and you deserved so much more time.

‘Goodbye to an earth angel. I will spend the rest of my life missing and loving you and all the better for knowing you.’

Dove later honoured her friend by getting a tattoo on her arm in memory of Cameron.

As someone who has been in therapy since she was eight years old, the star has been a vocal mental health advocate for years.

She consistently uses her social media platforms to share her story and connect with those who may be struggling.

In 2022, she included selfies of her crying and screenshots from her notes app, sharing that she was ‘struggling with the concept of self, my inner relationship to who I know myself to be and my outer perceivable self who I feel I have never known but other people seem to’.

But happiness for Dove was right around the corner, and in September 2023, she started dating Damiano.

The pair made their red carpet debut as a couple the following year.

The two stars went on to attend other public events together such as the 2024 Met Gala and a Los Angeles Lakers game.

During a previous interview with Cosmopolitan, the actress opened up about her relationship with the Italian singer.

‘He’s a Capricorn, so he was very much like, “Okay, these are my intentions”. It was super honorable. He’s like a 1950s gentleman, angel, teddy bear. He’s the best person I’ve met in my life.’

In November 2025, she flashed unusual diamond rings on her wedding finger at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards.

But her actual engagement ring was officially unveiled a few months later on Instagram.

Dove first sparked rumours that she and Damiano were engaged last year, and in January she opened up about his intimate proposal.

Speaking on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Dove flashed a diamond sparkler on her ring finger and revealed that David designed the piece of jewellery himself.

‘He did such a beautiful job. He helped design it so I feel like, especially touched and it’s so perfect,’ she gushed.

‘He was like, “I’m designing the ring”. And then he was like, “The ring is done”. So, I knew,’ the actress said with a laugh.

‘So, every step of the way I didn’t know how close we were or how far we were, right? But I just knew that this was coming.’

She then recalled being in an oversized shirt with ‘no makeup’ and her hair ‘still kind of wet from the shower’.

Dove said she knew right away that he was planning to pop the question but said, ‘I was so prepared until literally right now.

‘And so, I ran into the other room like panicking. Should I do my nails? Like, what do I do? I gotta be ready.’

David was waiting in the living room and she eventually went out to meet him after her ‘brain broke in half’.

The Italian singer ‘had something in his hand and he said, ‘I know that some girls want rose petals. I know you were maybe expecting something big.

‘But our life is so big and it’s so – and it’s full of so many public highs that there’s no romance in that for us anymore. And so I wanted to do this here in our home because I want dishes, I want laundry, I want baking foods together.

‘I want you in your big T-shirt. And this is the life that I choose and I hope you choose the same. Will you marry me?’

A few weeks earlier in January, Cameron jumped to her main Instagram page to announce the news while giving her followers a closer glimpse at the ring.

The couple cosied up together in a series of sweet snaps as she held up her hand towards the camera.

‘My favourite part of being alive happy new year,’ she penned in the caption of the post.

You can call the Samaritans at 116 123 for free, confidential, 24/7 emotional support if you are in the UK or Ireland and feeling alone.

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