An Australian actress has revealed her desperate need to earn $200,000 in seven days in order to “cryogenically preserve” her 13-year-old son’s body after he committed suicide. Fans were informed yesterday by Clare McCann that her son Atreyu had committed suicide last Friday following “months of relentless bullying.”
A link to an online campaign she had established to pay for the cryopreservation of his body — a procedure she thinks may one day provide the chance of revival—was included with her Instagram announcement. McCann told news.com.au, “I just need to express how much I truly need these funds to give my son what he wanted.”
Atreyu McCann Cause of Death: Australian Actress Clare McCann Mourns the Loss of Her Sonhttps://t.co/uVjuI0peUC pic.twitter.com/vlseqfJQ67
— News WZ (@JoyDas1888430) May 25, 2025
“About six or seven years ago we started talking about the afterlife and heaven and I talked to him a little about cryogenics, and he told me he would like to do that. Over the years we talked about that that’s what we would want to do together, never separate. He deserves a second chance to live the life he wanted.”
“We would talk about maybe we would be revived in a future so far ahead that humans have the ability to swim under water with extended breathing with the dolphins and the whales, or fly, or live on another planet … we would talk and dream about so much.”
Atreyu “tragically took his own life,” according to the fundraising page, and his mother writes that she must “urgently raise $200,000 to cryogenically preserve his body within the next 7 days — or the opportunity for him to live again will be lost forever.”
Actress begs for $196,000 donations to ‘preserve’ son, 13, after his suicidehttps://t.co/ee2zKo8x7C pic.twitter.com/UaIwZYVh59
— MirrorUSNews (@MirrorUSNews) May 26, 2025
As of now, the GoFundMe has raised $2,260 out of its $200,000 goal.
Every dollar received, according to McCann, will support “a trust in (Atreyu’s) name to protect his legacy,” “immediate cryopreservation and legal transportation, required medical and legal services for the procedure.” Any additional money generated over the $200,000 target, she says, will be used for anti-bullying reform and education.
Last May, a man in his 80s who had passed away in a Sydney hospital became the first “patient” to be frozen at Southern Cyronics, Australia’s first cryonics facility, which opened for business in Holbrook last year. The man was hoped to be revived at some point by future technological advancements.
Atreyu took his own life. This was not his fault. He was let down by the schooling system, and now I humbly beg of you to help me preserve his life and help me fight against this inhumane landslide of child suicides caused by unchecked bullying by schools https://t.co/O8I20XYJr3
— Quick Update (@quickmatters) May 26, 2025
She claimed her son, who had been homeschooled until high school, had been bullied since the day he began high school on February 7.
It was simply unrelenting. He began to distance himself from me, refusing to talk about anything, but I continued to speak up for him every day,” she added. “They wouldn’t suspend or expel them, which is incorrect given the high number of instances in schools. Children are a failure of the educational system. Right now, the only solace I can find is that this must have been our goal.”
McCann told news.com.au that she had often complained formally to a Sydney school about bullying, claiming that the school had not done enough to safeguard her 13-year-old son Atreyu, who she had lost to suicide.
He was only thirteen. He was worthy of a future. “He might still be alive if the government and school had taken action when I asked,” McCann told news.com.au. After “months of relentless bullying,” Atreyu killed himself while a student at South Sydney High School, according to his mother.
