Love on the Spectrum Star Pari Kim Loses Mother Esme to Cancer

When you lose one parent unexpectedly, the grief carves a permanent groove in your life. When you lose both before you turn 25, the landscape shifts in ways that are almost impossible to articulate. That’s the heartbreak Pari Kim, star of Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum, is navigating after her mother Esme died following a battle with stage 4 breast cancer.

The 24-year-old shared the devastating news on Instagram Wednesday night, and the language she chose to describe her pain tells you everything about how she’s processing it. Pari has long been known for her deep love of railroads and public transit — trains are woven through her life and her identity. So when she wrote about“everything becoming a train wreck”and described her mother as a“guardian locomotive reaching the end of the line,”it wasn’t just poetic grief. It was Pari speaking in the only metaphor that makes sense to her right now.

This loss compounds what was already an extraordinarily difficult year. Her father, Henry, died suddenly back in 2020 at just 55 years old. Now, six years later, she’s lost her mother at 61. In a follow-up Instagram Story post, Pari reminded followers to cherish their parents while they can because time is precious — a message born from the particular ache of losing both before she’d even reached true adulthood.

The timing adds another layer of pain. Just weeks ago, Pari revealed that she and her ex-girlfriend, Tina Zhu Xi Caruso, had split, describing themselves as“two trains on different tracks.”She’s weathering loss on multiple fronts: romantic, familial, and now the finality of death.

But Pari isn’t alone in this. Her Love on the Spectrum castmates flooded her Instagram with support. Madison Marilla noted that Esme“fought very hard,”and Abbey Romeo offered the simple, human gesture of wanting to give her a hug. That community matters, especially now. Pari has spent her time on reality television being vulnerable about her experiences navigating the world as an autistic woman. Now the people who’ve watched her journey are showing up for her in what might be her darkest moment yet.

Grief doesn’t follow a timeline, and it certainly doesn’t care about public narratives. What Pari is carrying right now — the loss of both parents, the end of a relationship, and the crushing weight of processing all of it in the public eye — is extraordinary. But if anyone knows how to keep moving forward despite everything working against you, it’s her.