Erica Ash, who starred on the Starz dramedy Survivor’s Remorse and the BET series Real Husbands of Hollywood and In Contempt and appeared in dozens of other films and TV shows including Mad TV, has died. She was 46.
Her family confirmed that Ash died after a long cancer battle but didn’t not provide other details. “Erica was an amazing woman and talented entertainer who touched countless lives with her sharp wit, humor and genuine zest for life,” her family said in a statement. “Her memory will live eternally in our hearts.”
Born on September 19, 1977, in Florida, Ash broke out as a regular on the first two seasons of Logo’s The Big Gay Sketch Show in 2006-07 and then Fox’s Mad TV. Into the 2010s, she worked in films including Scary Movie V, Horror Noire, Sister Code, Kristy, two 2017 Christmas pics and the 2018 basketball comedy Uncle Drew, starring Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal and others.
Among her first big roles was recurring from 2013-16 on the parody series Real Husbands of Hollywood, which starred Kevin Hart, Duane Martin, Nick Cannon, JB Smoove, Nelly and others. During that time, Ash also starred in all four seasons of Survivor’s Remorse, opposite Jessie T. Usher, RonReaco Lee, Tichina Arnold and Mike Epps.
“Erica Ash had a booming laugh that filled the set of Survivor’s Remorse every day,” creator and showrunner Mike O’Malley told Deadline today. “It was a loud and generous laugh. The kind of loud and genuine laugh that made you turn your head to see what you were missing. The kind of laugh that signified life being lived to the fullest. Erica did. As M-Chuck, she was nominated for an NAACP Image award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2017. She deserved that accolade and many more. She loved being on a show, working as an actor, and crafting a character that she could call her own. She was fearless, hilarious, compelling. But most of all — she was a good person. A team player. A woman you loved being around. To work with her was to know what the good life could look like.”
She also did a three-episode guest arc in the 2016 first season of NBC’s Shades of Blue starring Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta.
Ash’s next starring TV role was in legal drama In Contempt, which she toplined as talented and opinionated public defender Gwen Sullivan. It lasted one 10-episode season on BET. She then did a four-episode arc on The CW drama Legacies in 2019.
During the 2020s, Ash guested on such series as A Black Lady Sketch Show, Family Reunion and most recently NBC’s Extended Family and had voice roles on Bless the Harts and Aquaman: King of Atlantis. She also appeared in films including The Big Bend, Singleholic, Unthin kably Good Things and Outlaw Johnny Black.
“Ms. Erica Ash was a boundlessly talented actress whose range was superlative,” Professor Rel Dowdell, Director of Film Studies at Hampton University, told Deadline. ” Being a graduate of prestigious institution Emory University, she could have had many prosperous career options to choose from in life, but she definitely chose the right one in being a standout and very conscious actress who touched many lives with her work.”-
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Ash’s name to the Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation or other breast cancer charities.
