Former America’s Next Top Model star Jael Strauss has passed away at the age of 34, just two months after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.
According to TMZ Strauss died in hospice on Tuesday morning and had been unconscious for several days.
“The one blessing was that we were able to show her how loved she was before she passed,” her family said in a statement to the outlet. “She brought so much light to people.”
On Oct. 4, Jael announced her diagnosis in a Facebook post.
“I was gonna write some long thing but some of you guys deserve to know, On October 2nd I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. It has aggressively spread throughout my body and is incurable,” she wrote.
“With treatment it may prolong my life longer than the ‘few months’ doctors said I could make it. I don’t want to die. I need another one of those miracles that I got back in 2013.”
At the end of November, Strauss announced that she had entered hospice care. “First night in hospice. So many things I never knew about life. Or death,” she wrote on Facebook. “So many things.”
Struggling with alcohol abuse in the past, the Detroit native recently celebrated being five years sober.
“Today I have 5 years sober. Good God!” she wrote in August. “I know a few things to be true: Miracles are real, Recovery is possible for everyone no matter how far gone you think you are, We are never too broken to be put back together.”
Strauss competed on the eighth season of America’s Next Top Model in 2007 and finished sixth in the competition.
Our thoughts are with her family and friends.
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