EUPHORIA Creator ‘Fought Very Hard’ to Keep Angus Cloud Clean…Well, Not Hard Enough.

Published: April 13, 2026

By Michaela Gordoni

EUPHORIA creator Sam Levinson recently opened up about the death of the show’s actor, Angus Cloud, who passed away in 2023.

“I fought very hard to keep him clean when he was alive, and losing him was really tough,” Levinson told EW.

Cloud died from an overdose of a mix of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and benzodiazepines.

The show normalizes — even celebrates — drug use. Cloud’s character, Fez, is a drug dealer. EUPHORIA also depicts teenagers in situations with nudity, sex and violence.

There is no doubt that EUPHORIA was bad for the actor. Fame, money and being in a show like this likely sped him on his journey to overdose.

In 2024, I wrote, “A year before Cloud’s death, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program said this: ‘Rather than further each parent’s desire to keep their children safe from the potentially horrific consequences of drug abuse and other high-risk behavior, HBO’s television drama, EUPHORIA, chooses to misguidedly glorify and erroneously depict high school student drug use, addiction, anonymous sex, violence, and other destructive behaviors as common and widespread in today’s world.’”

The Drug Abuse Resistance Program warned about this. Despite a death of one of their own actors, EUPHORIA still isn’t listening and is about to launch a new season.

Cloud’s uncle, Kevin Cloud, talked about Cloud’s death in a documentary.

“Those last few weeks, he probably OD’d at least three or four times,” Kevin said. “He was gonna keep abusing opioids until he died.”

“His mom Lisa was unable to sleep because she had to go keep checking on him to see if he was alive,” he said. “I said to Lisa, ‘If it hadn’t been the first of the month, it would have been the sixth of the month, or the tenth of the month. That’s just the way he was headed.”

Levinson said he loved Cloud and misses him.

“The year he died, in 2023, he was one of 73,000 people in America who died of a fentanyl overdose. I learned a whole lot that year, but what I realized more than anything is that death is what gives life meaning,” he said.

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“You can’t be arrogant about existence. You’re forced to reckon with the fact that life itself is a wonder, a gift, a profound blessing,” he said. It’s a shame that Levinson realized that too late. He was trying to “save” Cloud from the very lifestyle Cloud’s character promotes.

Levinson, nor any of the EUPHORIA creators, have taken any responsibility for their show’s negative impact.

Cloud’s mother said his death was not intentional.

“He was reorganizing his room and placing items around the house with intent to stay a while in the home he loved,” she said. “He spoke of his intent to help provide for his sisters at college and help his mom emotionally and financially. He did not intend to end his life.”

It is terribly unfortunate that Cloud ended up in a show like this.

Movieguide® editor Cooper Dowd wrote shortly after Cloud’s death, “How can a show be on the right side of morality when the best answer to a teen’s struggle with addiction is that there is no life after death? That in the end, what we do, and sin’s consequences, don’t matter?”

You just have to wonder — if he had been without this show’s influence, would he still be alive today?

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