Cameron Mathison has enjoyed decades of success as an actor and TV host, but he struggled for years to feel fulfilled and content. The former Hallmark star, who still appears regularly in Great American Family movies and as Drew Cain on “General Hospital,” has bravely opened up about some of his darkest times during an interview on the Modern Buddhist podcast.
Although the full podcast has not yet been released, two clips of Mathison’s interview have been posted on social media, including one on March 19, 2026, in which he candidly shared his downward spiral after moving to New York for his first series, “All My Children.”
Cameron Mathison Says the More Money He Made, the Less Fulfilled He Felt
When Mathison was starting out, he had a few small movie roles, but hit the jackpot when he landed the part of Ryan Lavery on the soap opera “All My Children” in 1998. The Ontario native moved to New York and was suddenly famous and rich. While that may sound like a dream, Mathison revealed on the Modern Buddhism podcast that it led him into a downward spiral.
“I was so excited, and I moved to New York, and it’s like … one of those chapters in your life when everything starts to change,” Mathison recalled of landing his “All My Children” gig, which lasted for 13 years.
“And I’m on that show for a while, and it’s bigger than life,” he continued. “You know, all of a sudden I’ve got all these things coming my way — fame and money and, you know, excitement and pleasure and status and houses and cars, and all these things externally that society kind of encourages us to pursue for happiness and for meaning in life.”
“It was a lot,” Mathison admitted, adding, “All of those things, of course, are incredible things, but … I started really grasping and needing and wanting more. And as we know, it’s like drinking seawater, as Geshe-la says.”
It was the first of several references by Mathison, who has been practicing Buddhism for many years, to late Tibetan Buddhist master Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, affectionately known as “Geshe-la” to his students, according to the Tushita Kadampa Meditation Center in Thousand Oaks, California.
Cameron Mathison Says His World ‘Spiraled Really, Really Quickly’
GettyLooking back at that time in his life, Cameron said on the Modern Buddhism podcast, “There was zero contentment, just (wanted) more and more and more. And so … those little hits of external kind of pleasure, worldly pleasure, were very short-lived and (I was) grasping and needing more.”
Mathison, who met his future wife Vanessa Arevalo at a NYC gym, then candidly shared, “It quickly turned into drugs and then alcohol and women and late nights and more money, and it spiraled really, really quickly. And although on paper you would say I had everything that you need to be happy and have this, you know, extreme life, this pleasurable life, I was in a really dark place and really struggling.”
At the end of the clip, Mathison noted that all of those choices “obviously trickled down into that relationship” with Arevalo, whom he married in 2002. The couple shares two grown kids, but announced their split 22 years later, in July 2024.
Mathison said on the podcast that Arevalo was the one who noticed he was spiraling and searched for a local Buddhist meditation class to help him get centered. In 2020, while hosting Hallmark’s “Home & Family” talk show, he said during a segment that he’d been practicing meditation for 15 years and that “it’s completely changed my life in so many ways.”
Cameron Mathison Admits He Long Wished to ‘Have Less’ Before His House Burned Down
After separating from Arevalo, Mathison lived at their beloved family home in Los Angeles, while she stayed at a nearby condo. Months later, in January 2025, the house burned to the ground in the Altadena fire.
He has been very vocal about what a devastating loss that was for him, but Mathison said in a second clip from the Modern Buddhism podcast that it was also, strangely, a gift. The actor said he’d experienced a great deal of grief in the previous few years, from going through cancer treatment to losing his mom to ending his “relationship that (I) thought was going to be forever.”
When his house burned down, with all of their family’s possessions inside, he said, “It’s all gone, like a death … such a beautiful teaching, in a way.”
Mathison shared that he “snuck up in the morning of the fires” to try to see the extent of the damage, recalling, “I came around the corner and I saw my house burning, and there was, like, nothing there. It was still like simmering and burning. It looked like a green screen, looked like a bad movie. It didn’t look real. It was so surreal.”
The former “Hannah Swensen Mysteries” star said that he muted the video he shared on social media “because I never heard those noises come out of my body before, like it was such deep shock … What I was seeing wasn’t matching what I knew to be true. It’s almost like, when I got the call I had cancer, it didn’t (feel true).”
But there was a nagging feeling within him, Mathison said, that losing everything was exactly what he needed. He explained, “There was a freedom, like, little blips (of awareness) because I’d had the wish
for years, and I talked to my (spiritual) teachers about it: I’d had the wish for years to have less and
to want less.”
“I’ve been very fortunate with money and jobs and just more stuff,” Mathison continued, “and I had this wish to have less and want less … So in that moment, it was like, Geshe-la was like, ‘Oh, I got you. It’s all gone now.”
What you really need, Cameron, is Jesus Christ! He is the only way you can be released from your longings. He is the Truth and the Way to salvation. Study the Bible and you will find the Truth that satisfies every human heart! Please, Cameron, don’t die like Steve Jobs did. Searching everything in life except the Bible , even Buddhism, but dying with no hope of eternal salvation in Christ. End the search- trust Jesus !