Angus Cloud was having his first bout of bad press. The 25-year-old, who gained overnight success and adoration as Fezco, the lovable, soft-spoken but protective drug dealer in HBO’s Euphoria, had just been named as a person of interest in a hit-and-run case in Los Angeles in February.
Headed back home following an event near Salt Lake City, morale was low. The past few hours had been rough, Cloud’s assistant Shay Dinneen recalls to Rolling Stone, with reports circulating that cops wanted to chat about the crash and brands were wavering on upcoming projects.
The two were glum when Cloud saw someone walk by and offered a sincere compliment on their outfit. “He’s like, ‘Oh, I like your hat,’” Dinneen tells Rolling Stone. “We just sat there in silence for a second, and he just goes, ‘Man, it feels good to be nice to people.’”
“It broke my heart,” Dinneen says, that despite the potentially precarious circumstances hanging over him, Cloud still could effortlessly think of others before himself. “Like, ‘Goddammit, Angus, you little sweetheart.’ He was pure fucking joy.”
Cloud’s authenticity, generosity, and kind-hearted nature were consistent themes that popped up in tearful conversations with some of his close friends, who shared their memories of the actor with Rolling Stone in the wake of Cloud’s sudden and unexpected death on July 31.
Born Conor Angus Cloud Hickey — “Conor” to those who grew up with him — Cloud was a good friend in the purest sense of the word, according to those who knew him best. He never forgot where he came from, always shouting out upcoming Bay Area artists, checking up with the “homies” on FaceTime, or spending hours adventuring and tagging with his fellow graffiti artist pals. Cloud made himself readily available to those he cared about, looking out and supporting them when he could.
“My favorite memory of him has to do with water,” longtime friend and graffiti artist Tre “Tha Therd” Sorensen says. “He said one time, ‘Money is just like water, bro, and someone’s thirsty. How can I have water and not give them a cup?’”
Similar sentiments and stories will be shared at Cloud’s memorial service on Thursday in Oakland, a private event for the actor’s family and loved ones, Rolling Stone has learned. The official cause of Cloud’s death has not been released, but his mother, Lisa, disputed initial reports that her son was suicidal in the wake of his father’s death after a short battle against mesothelioma cancer in May.
“Although my son was in deep grief about his father’s untimely death … his last day was a joyful one,” her statement said. “When we hugged goodnight we said how much we loved each other and he said he would see me in the morning … We may find out that he overdosed accidentally and tragically, but it’s abundantly clear that he did not intend to check out of this world.”
Cloud never directly set out to be an actor. He was a skateboarder, a graffiti artist, an art and trinket collector, a self-described goofball, and an all-around “weird homie,” his friends fondly say.
His quick ascension to fame could be considered a fluke if it wasn’t for the pure magnetism and charisma Cloud radiated. As the much-told story goes, Cloud was working at a restaurant in New York City when he was scouted on the streets, landing Euphoria soon after.
He had arrived in New York City with little to no plan. Cloud was the last person who artist Loady says expected to turn up on her Brooklyn doorstep in 2018. An Oakland native, Loady was part of the larger friend group from the Bay Area and had an open-door policy to use their Bed-Stuy place as a crash pad for those who wanted to venture from home. “He just showed up at my door,” Loady says. “He was like, ‘I moved here, sis.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ Not in a million years did I think he would be the person knocking on my door. I had no friends at the time, like at all. It felt like such a blessing. He came in, and I just hugged him, and we just cried.”
It was because of Cloud’s nonchalant nature that Loady says she had no idea of the magnitude Euphoria was shaping up to be. “He made it seem like he was on an infomercial,” she laughs. “He was gone for like two weeks. I was like, ‘Where were you?’ He’s like, ‘Shooting this thing with the lady.’”
Slowly, Cloud started piecemealing her details about the project. “He was like, ‘Oh, the pilot just dropped. Also, Zendaya is in it.’ That’s when I realized, you didn’t shoot no infomercial, bro. It was all really confusing, and [when I saw the pilot], my jaw was on the floor.”
“Even if he first met you, he would immediately call you his homie and bring you in.”
Magdaline “Mags” Wang
The role of Fezco came naturally to Cloud because, in part, he was so similar to the character. “It was effortless for him,” longtime friend Magdaline “Mags” Wang says. “It was playing a role of who he already was, but not in the drug dealer sense, but in being authentic.”
Beyond acting, art was a major part of Cloud’s life. His home was his gallery and studio, creating in the space, hanging friends’ art, and collecting little oddities he found. Loady estimates Cloud had upward of 2,000 “tiny trinkets” and “toys” filling his home. Sorensen had a slightly different choice of words: “organized chaos” and “eclectic hoarder,” recalling how Cloud would bring home recycling, repurposed car parts, and anything he got his hands on. “I think he just had a genuine curiosity, even just for trash,” Sorensen says.
Graffiti was Cloud’s gateway into the art scene, getting his start back in middle school and progressing along the years. “He’s a legend back home,” Loady says. “A lot of people didn’t know that, but that’s what made me look at him, like ‘You are such a star.’”
Like anything, there was a learning curve. “Horrible,” laughs Sorensen when recalling the first time seeing Cloud’s tag back in 2012. “He did a fucking throwie on the billboard across the street from my apartment. The night before I met him, I was like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ Then I met him, and we walked past, and he’s like, ‘That’s me.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, that’s so ugly. What the hell?’ He’s like, ‘I know, the can fucked up.’ It was hella funny.”
As time went on, Cloud progressed, and Sorensen says he ended up being the most creative out of their circle in terms of his style and projects. “And guess what? In the graffiti world, he was up,” Sorensen says. “He was up in the cuts like Neosporin.”
Courtesy of Daniela Marie
Fame didn’t deter Cloud from continuing to graffiti. During the making of an untitled Universal monster horror film earlier this year, Cloud spent his downtime tagging the streets of Dublin. “He’s got some good lines,” Dinneen says. But Cloud’s inner circle won’t pinpoint where his tags live. “Honestly, he wouldn’t want that to get out,” Dinneen says. “It’s cooler that people don’t know, so that the people that do know his tags are his friends. He didn’t care about the fame.”
In that same vein, Cloud wanted to keep his music under wraps, which he began dabbling with in the months leading up to his death. “Everyone compared him to Mac Miller when he first came out because they kind of look alike,” Wang says. “He told me the last thing he ever wants to do is put his music out there because he doesn’t want people to start comparing him to that again. He just wanted to be him.”
There was also an element — just like in his graffiti — that Cloud wanted his work to speak for itself. He didn’t want fans flocking to something he’d done solely because of his name. He wanted those who knew to appreciate the art and judge it off merit, not with his clout tied to it. “He wanted people to fuck with the music,” Loady says. “But genuinely so, as if they didn’t know it was him rapping.”
But Cloud seemed to be getting closer to sharing some of his music — at least with close confidantes. A few months ago, a YouTube track upload bears Cloud’s distinctive slow drawl rapping over a synthy, dream-like beat. Calling her from his trailer on set after his father had suddenly died, Loady says Cloud asked if he could sing her something he had been working on. “He was like, ‘Don’t laugh. I’m gonna sing you these songs.’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I laugh, bro?’ But I could tell he was hurting very deeply.”
Above all, Cloud was loyal — something everyone mentioned early in every conversation. It manifested in his generosity, giving away countless gifts that were meant for him and opening his arms to bringing new people into his circle. “His love language is gifting things to people, going on adventures, and spending quality time,” Wang says. “He’s very, very inclusive. He’s not somebody who would exclude you out of things. Even if he first met you, he would immediately call you his homie and bring you in.”
Recognizing his platform, Cloud took every opportunity to shout out his buddies. Even in his 2018 casting tape — which led to him nabbing the Euphoria job and kicking off his career — when casting director Jennifer Venditti asked him which musicians he admired, Cloud didn’t rattle off household names. “My favorite artists are my friends,” he said before naming them one by one.
As Cloud’s celebrity grew, he was still highlighting his crew, tagging their work on his Instagram Story to his 7 million followers, and turning up to smaller events in a show of support. Last year, Cloud shared a 56-song Spotify playlist of his go-to songs, all of which are from Bay Area artists. There are recognizable names, such as Mac Dre, E-40, Johnny Ca$h, but also his close friends Countup Ru and Slim Lucciano.
“He was a really genuine person, and his success only really amplified that. It made him even more generous and inviting,” friend and Oakland musician Zé, who was a featured artist in the music video Cloud shot for “1 Call,” says. “He’s the one that’s a star, but he still wants to support his friends and community and make sure the people around him are successful as well.”
“He loved to show off his friends,” Loady adds. “He truly was a fan of his friends, and it never changed. He knew he could help people out by just posting them. He never hesitated.”
“He’s a legend back home.”
Loady
Those in his inner circle could expect FaceTime calls from Cloud to check in and shoot the shit, and he’d share what was happening in his life from wherever he was. On holidays, he’d send his version of a personalized holiday card. “He’d hand draw Santa Claus smoking a blunt or a random drawing and send it to a million of us,” Wang says. “His New Year’s or Christmas check-in was a genuine, family hand-drawn card by him.”
Cloud was always down for a laugh, exuded “childlike joy” when happy, and frankly put, “didn’t give a fuck” about others’ opinions, Dinneen says. One of his favorite memories with Cloud was a moment caught on video of the actor cheering, jumping up, and filming from his phone as a train passes by Cloud’s film set, panning to the rest of the crew, who look slightly amused if not flat out confused why Cloud was so animated about a cargo train. “He was definitely very much like a kid in really big shoes to me,” he says. “He was just fucking sweet and genuine.”
Cracking up, Wang remembers Cloud coming to her rescue when a rat got stuck under her and her roommates’ kitchen stove. “We’re so freaked out, we’re all girls. We were like, ‘We need someone to kill it!’ she says. “Conor came over and was like, ‘I have a machete in my car. I’ll go kill it right now.’ He grabs a machete out of his car and literally just whacks this rat head-on and kills it.”
Loady cherishes those days in New York before Cloud gained fame, calling him her baby brother — a much-needed support system when she was figuring out her place in New York. “We did a lot of our first things together,” she says. “Caviar and escargot and trying things we probably should have tried a long time ago but never had the chance to.”
There’s a heavy sense of loss that hangs in the Oakland air without Cloud’s presence. In the days since his death, members of his Oakland family have come together to pay him tribute in their own way, creating a mural in his honor. It has turned into a gathering point for anyone to come to grieve, share stories and leave mementos — some of which Cloud would have surely nicked and squirreled away in his house. People left their personalized tags alongside a black and white portrait of Cloud. “Weird homies” is one of the marks scrawled under the image. Wang, who is a tattoo artist, says she has already done several tattoos on his sisters and their crew in his honor.
The mark he left — both in his career and personal life — was undeniable. “This kid was amazing,” Loady says. “I don’t know how else to put it.”
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