Dove Cameron Reveals She Has ‘Major Phone Anxiety’ After Finding Out Her Dad Died

Dove Cameron said she has “major phone anxiety” after learning of her dad’s death over a phone call.

The singer, 30, opened up about the tragic moment in her life during the Wednesday, Feb. 4 episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast. 

She recalled receiving the news that her dad died by suicide just months after he had visited her in Los Angeles when she was only 15 years old. On the day she learned of his death, she said a family friend messaged her to ask if her mom was around.

Because her mom was out, the family friend encouraged her to tell her mom to get in contact with a family member. “I just knew,” the Disney alum said. “I can’t tell you why I knew. But it was not a normal interaction. She had no reason to be talking to me.”

Cameron’s mom later arrived home and called a family member, who told them that her dad Phil “is no longer with us.”

“I had a panic attack because it’s the most out of control feeling you can have,” she said. “Actually all three of my big losses have come via phone call, which I guess is pretty standard… But I have major phone anxiety, I think, because of stuff like this.”

Cameron recalled her reaction to the tragic news, saying, “I ran out of the room.” She continued to say, “I couldn’t breathe” and noted that she went into “this, like, animal mode.”

“You are fight, flight or freeze,” she said. “You feel like you’re going to vomit your soul — I don’t know how else to describe it.”

The singer, also known for her acting roles in Descendants and Schmigadoon!, spoke to PEOPLE in 2023 about revisiting her past traumas.

While talking about her debut alum, Alchemical Vol. 1, she told PEOPLE, “My friends and family have always had this sense of worry and stress about me. I think, as a Capricorn and as someone who’s highly traumatized, I dove into work so hard at such a young age, and I really didn’t construct a community, a life or anything outside of my job.”

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Cameron, who has lost two close friends in addition to her dad, continued, “I reached this place, and I think this happens to most people in their 20s, where you have to take stock of all of the things you ignored and revisit, reorient and reorganize them, almost like an emotional spring-cleaning.”

“I had to go into the attic of all of the stuff I hadn’t dealt with and go through them and look at them and put it down on paper. It was really, really good for me as a human being,” she said.

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