'America's Next Top Model' contestant Jael Strauss dead at 34
Jael Strauss, who competed on Season 8 of America’s Next Top Model, has died at age 34. Her family confirmed the sad news to TMZ saying, “The one blessing was that we were able to show her how loved she was before she passed. She brought so much light to people.”
Strauss’s passing comes just two months after she revealed she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer.
A post shared by Jael Strauss (@eureka.secrets) on Oct 23, 2018 at 11:53am PDT
“It has aggressively spread throughout my body and is incurable,” she shared on Facebook. “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.”
In 2013, Strauss got sober after revealing her addiction issues to Dr. Phil. She celebrated five years of sobriety in August, calling her recovery a “miracle” in a moving post.
A post shared by Jael Strauss (@eureka.secrets) on Aug 16, 2018 at 8:17am PDT
According to TMZ, Strauss died in hospice Tuesday, after taking a turn for the worse Monday night. She was apparently unconscious for a few days. The model stopped chemotherapy around Halloween and went into hospice on Thanksgiving.
“First night in hospice. So many things I never knew about life. Or death. So many things,” she wrote on Facebook on Nov. 22 in one of her final posts.
A GoFundMe was started for Strauss after her diagnosis.
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