James Van Der Beek asked fans to pay attention to THIS symptom before his death

James Van Der Beek asked his fans to pay attention to one specific colorectal cancer symptom before his death at 48.

For those unaware, the renowned American actor succumbed to colorectal cancer on Wednesday, February 11.

While conversing with PEOPLE magazine in November 2024, Van Der Beek unveiled one symptom of his stage 3 cancer that he did not pay heed to.

Speaking of his disease for the first time in public, he said, “It just a change in bowel habits.”

“I thought, I probably need to change my diet a little bit. Maybe I need to stop [drinking] coffee,” The Dawson’s Creek star noted. “Maybe I need to not put cream in the coffee.”

“Then I finally took that out of the diet, and it didn’t improve, and I thought, all right, I better go get this checked out,” Van Der Beek.

Notably, he did his routine colonoscopy in August 2023 because he was not feeling “really, really good as I was coming out of anesthesia that I had finally done it and looked into it.”

“And as I was coming out of the haze, the gastroenterologist said — in his most pleasant bedside manner — it is cancer,” Van Der Beek said.