Christian Cousins

Christian Cousins died on 20 October 2026, at the age of 43. His half brother Jonas Roeser shared the news on Instagram two days later, writing that Christian had been very sick with liver disease and that he took comfort in believing Christian was in heaven with his mother, free from the pain he was carrying. The place of death and any funeral arrangements were not made public. The news was widely reported by entertainment outlets on 13 November 2026.

Christian Cousins was born in March 1983 in Orange County, California, together with his identical twin brother, Joseph, known as Joey. The twins were raised in California. They also had a half brother, Jonas Roeser, through their biological father, who grew up separately in Washington state. The boys began working in television while still very young, landing their first role, according to later reports, at the age of five.

The Cousins twins made their screen debut in an episode of Highway to Heaven. Because labour rules strictly limit how many hours a young child may work on set, producers often cast identical twins to share a single part, and Christian and Joey worked this way throughout their careers.

From 1987 to 1992 they shared the role of Bobby Ewing on the CBS prime time soap Knots Landing, appearing in nearly 60 episodes. In 1990 they played Dominic in Kindergarten Cop, Ivan Reitman's comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a police detective working undercover as a kindergarten teacher. The film was a major box office success and remains one of the best remembered family comedies of its era.

The twins also appeared in the 1991 horror comedy Critters 3, notable as the first film of Leonardo DiCaprio. Their last acting role came in 1995, when Christian was about 12, and neither brother returned to the screen as an adult.

After leaving acting Christian lived a private life away from the entertainment industry. He remained close to his twin, Joey. In 2020 he joined former cast members for a 30th anniversary Kindergarten Cop reunion organised by Yahoo Entertainment, where he talked about the audition process and why twins were cast. His half brother Jonas Roeser described him as a character, full of passion and energy, with big stories and even bigger dreams.

Christian Cousins is remembered with his twin as part of two of the most watched productions of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Knots Landing and Kindergarten Cop. Decades after the twins stopped acting, their scenes as Dominic continued to be shared and quoted by fans, and the news of his death prompted many to recall rewatching the film and the soap in which the brothers grew up on screen.