If you’ve watched TV in the last decade, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Alec Cabacungan and Kaleb-Wolf De Melo Torres in a Shriners Hospitals for Children commercial. Both were born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, commonly called brittle bone disease, and both have spent years as the public faces of the hospital network that treats them. Here’s what’s actually documented about who they are, separate from the flood of unverified “net worth” and rumor pages that show up when you search their names.
Quick Facts
| Alec Cabacungan | From Chicago, Illinois; Osteogenesis Imperfecta; Shriners spokesperson since roughly 2015; studies journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School |
| Kaleb-Wolf De Melo Torres | From Winnipeg, Canada; Osteogenesis Imperfecta; longtime Shriners spokesperson, still active in the role |
| Shared condition | Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease) — a genetic disorder with no cure, managed through physical therapy and care |
| Online rumors | Numerous unverified “net worth,” “age,” and other sensational claims circulate about both of them; none trace back to a credible source |
Alec Cabacungan: From Patient to Spokesperson to Journalism Student
Alec was born on May 8, 2002, in the Chicago area, and was diagnosed with Osteogenesis Imperfecta before birth. The condition has caused him more than 60 bone fractures over his lifetime; CBS News has reported that something as minor as a sneeze has been enough to break one of his ribs. There’s currently no cure for OI, though physical therapy helps manage it.
Alec has served as a spokesperson for Shriners Hospitals for Children for about a decade, appearing in national commercials that have helped the organization raise donations for its network of pediatric hospitals. According to CBS News, he has traveled roughly 80 days a year to support the hospitals’ mission, and a wheelchair basketball court at a Shriners facility was named in his honor, a sport he both plays and coaches.
Off camera, Alec has pursued a long-standing interest in sports media. He ran a YouTube channel called “Smart Alec on Sports” covering sports statistics and trivia, and appeared on TNT’s NBA halftime coverage. According to Northwestern University’s own accessibility office, where he has been profiled as a student, Alec studies journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, with sports broadcasting as his career goal. That same profile lists his hobbies as wheelchair basketball, video games, and movies.
Kaleb-Wolf De Melo Torres: Shriners’ Youngest Long-Running Face
Kaleb was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and, like Alec, was diagnosed with Osteogenesis Imperfecta. His case has involved a significantly higher number of fractures over his life. He has appeared in Shriners Hospitals commercials for years, becoming one of the organization’s most recognizable young spokespeople, and continues to take part in interviews and public appearances as a teenager today.
Beyond what Shriners and verified interviews have shared publicly, there isn’t much independently confirmed detail about Kaleb’s day-to-day life available, which is unsurprising and appropriate given that he’s a minor. Treat any page claiming to know his exact finances, precise age down to the day, or dramatic personal details with real skepticism; almost all of that content traces back to the same cluster of low-quality sites discussed below, not to Kaleb, his family, or Shriners Hospitals.
How They Became the Faces of Shriners Hospitals
Both Alec and Kaleb started out as Shriners patients before becoming the network’s on-camera spokespeople, a path many of the organization’s longtime commercial faces have followed. Their commercials are credited with meaningfully boosting donations to Shriners’ network of pediatric hospitals, which provide care regardless of a family’s ability to pay. Their visibility has also put a human face on Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a condition most people have never heard of before seeing them on screen.
Why Search Results About Them Are Full of Unverified Claims
Search either of their names and you’ll run into dozens of pages claiming to reveal their “net worth,” exact age, or health status, hosted on an odd mix of sites that have nothing to do with celebrity news, including university subpages, software company blogs, and local business sites that appear to have been compromised to host this kind of content. This is a known pattern: low-quality content networks target real people who generate a lot of search curiosity and publish speculative or fabricated detail to capture that traffic.
None of the specific financial figures attributed to Alec or Kaleb online trace back to Shriners Hospitals, a credible news outlet, or either of them directly, so Tricklings isn’t repeating them here. What’s independently documented is more straightforward: both are real Shriners Hospitals patients turned spokespeople, both have Osteogenesis Imperfecta, and both have used their visibility to support the hospital network that treats them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are Alec and Kaleb from the Shriners commercials?
They’re real patients of Shriners Hospitals for Children who became the organization’s long-running commercial spokespeople. Alec Cabacungan is from the Chicago area; Kaleb-Wolf De Melo Torres is from Winnipeg, Canada.
What condition do Alec and Kaleb have?
Both have Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, a genetic disorder that causes frequent fractures and currently has no cure.
Is Alec Cabacungan still involved with Shriners Hospitals?
Yes. He has continued his work as a spokesperson while also studying journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School, with a goal of working in sports broadcasting.
Is it true what some sites say about their net worth?
No figure circulating online for either of them traces back to a credible source. Those claims come from the same type of low-quality sites that publish speculative content about anyone who generates search interest.
Where can I see more of Alec’s work?
He has run a YouTube channel, “Smart Alec on Sports,” focused on sports statistics and trivia, and has been profiled by Northwestern University’s own accessibility office as a journalism student there.
