Beau Jessup, the 27-year-old daughter of actress Lisa Maxwell, has died unexpectedly, it was reported on 12 November 2026. Beau had been studying journalism at Columbia University in New York City.
University tribute
A spokesperson for Columbia University said: "Columbia Journalism School mourns the loss of Beau Jessup, a student in our M.S. program. We join Jessup's family, friends and classmates in remembering her."
Jelani Cobb, dean of the journalism school, paid tribute in an email to the university's team and students. "There is no easy way to share news of this nature and I recognize how painful it is to receive messages like this one," he wrote. "Any loss within our school family is difficult to process, and our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to Beau's family and friends during this heartbreaking time."
Family background
Lisa Maxwell played Samantha Nixon in The Bill and appeared on Loose Women. She shared daughter Beau with her husband Paul. No cause of death has yet been confirmed for Beau.
Lisa had previously re-shared a photo of her daughter and her classmates taken in October 2024. The caption of the original post read: "Our latest matriculation dinner was for new MSt students in Writing for Performance. Welcome: we're so pleased that you've joined the Selwyn and @Cambridge_Uni community."
Lisa added in her own caption: "Congratulations guys! Especially my daughter Beau over in NYC making us all super proud."
Beau's aspirations
With permission from her family, Columbia University re-shared an interview they did with Beau before her death. In it, she spoke about her hopes for the future.
"I want to work as a journalist and writer, reporting on people, culture, and social questions with the rigor I'm learning at Columbia. I'm particularly drawn to journalism for its power and immediacy, while continuing to write for theatre when a subject benefits from being explored through a different form," she said.
"I'm inspired by journalists who have also written plays: Jeff Biggers, whose reporting has appeared in The New York Times and The Guardian, alongside his work as a playwright, and Josh Duboff, who worked as a senior writer at Vanity Fair before writing plays, including Scarlett Fever."
