‘Real Husbands of Hollywood’ Actress Was 46

Erica Ash, who spent two seasons on the Fox sketch comedy show Mad TV and also stood out on the BET reality spoof Real Husbands of Hollywood and the Starz comedy-drama Survivor’s Remorse, has died. She was 46.

Ash died Sunday in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer, her publicist Elizabeth Much told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Erica was an amazing woman and talented entertainer who touched countless lives with her sharp wit, humor and genuine zest for life,” her family said in a statement. “Her memory will live eternally in our hearts.”

She also starred as the fierce public defender Gwen Sullivan on the 2018 BET drama In Contempt.

Ash first made an impression by starring on the first two seasons (2006-08) of Logo’s The Big Gay Sketch Show, produced by Rosie O’Donnell, and she appeared on the big screen in films including Scary Movie V (2013), Uncle Drew (2018), The Big Bend (2021) and Violet (2021).

Ash played Mary Charles (“M-Chuck”) Calloway, half-sister of Jessie T. Usher’s pro basketball player Cam Calloway, on all four seasons (2014-17) of Survivor’s Remorse. The series was produced by LeBron James at his Spring Hill Productions.

As Bridgette Hart, she made life extremely difficult for her ex-husband Kevin Hart on Real Husbands of Hollywood, which ran for five seasons, from 2013-16.

Erica Chantal Ash was born in Florida on Sept. 19, 1977, and raised in Atlanta, where she attended Emory University to study medicine. She took a break and went to Japan, where she “fell into a background singing gig my first week there” and did some modeling, she told the Los Angeles Times in 2017.

“Then my modeling team was doing a show for the royal family of Japan at this hotel and the ringside announcer thought I should ringside announce. Literally, one thing led to another, so I tell people I’m the Forrest Gump of my field. I just blindly, by faith, walked through life and said ‘yes’ to things that were presented to me, and it led me here.”

She worked on Broadway in 2011 in Baby It’s You!, the jukebox musical from Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott that featured music from The Shirelles and other acts signed to Scepter Records.

Her résumé also included episodes of Cold Case, Shades of Blue, A Black Lady Sketch Show and Family Reunion and the films Kristy (2014), Jean of the Joneses (2016) and The Outlaw Johnny Black (2023).

On Instagram, her friend and fellow comedian Loni Love noted how Ash “would put her all into her work.”

Donations in her memory can be made to the Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation or the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Survivors include her mother, Diann, and her sister, Adrienne.

Ash “was an actress whose range and talent were truly limitless,” Rel Dowdell, director of film studies at Hampton University, noted. “Her canvas of work admirably and notably covered all genres, and with every performance, she left a first-class impression on the viewer.”