Octavia Spencer’s family is in mourning.
The “Hidden Figures” star announced in a heartbreaking Instagram post late Tuesday that her nephew has died.
“Grief. You wouldn’t know it by this picture that today was the second worst day of my life. My family lost the first of the next generation of us, and we’re gutted,” she wrote alongside a somber-looking photo of a bouquet of flowers.
“Grief is the most terrifying of emotions because I can’t laugh my way out of it. I have to feel. Right now, I’m feeling for my sister who lost her only son. Her only child. If you’re praying people, pray for her and my brother in law.”
Spencer, 52, has two sisters, Areka and Rosa, but she didn’t share which sister suffered the horrible loss or the details surrounding the death. The “Gifted” actress also turned off comments on her post.
Just days prior, Spencer celebrated her birthday with a surprise cake gifted to her by her friends and colleagues.
“Y’all!!! The ONE day I was late trying to creep in quietly, I had a throng of OG (crew since season 1) waiting to wish me happy birthday,” she captioned a photo of herself blowing out candles.
She also followed up with a more introspective post about her birthday, in which she said she needed to find light after the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo.
“Some friends stopped by to surprise me with balloons and the wind took them to a neighbor’s tree. The good Lord knew we needed the laugh considering the terrifying week,” she wrote.
“The tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde are emblematic of a greater problem in this nation: apathy. We’ve become desensitized to the evil genie that is gun violence. Clearly, the genie is out of the bottle but it can be stopped. How? Well, we have to take its power!! A genie with no magic is just a puff of smoke.”