America's Next Top Model star Jael Strauss died following a battle with breast cancer, TMZ reported Tuesday. She was 34 years old. She announced two months ago she was diagnosed with "incurable" stage 4 breast cancer. She regularly updated fans about her progress on Instagram and Facebook.
She revealed she stopped chemotherapy around Halloween and entered hospice last month. "First night in hospice," she wrote on Facebook November 22. "So many things I never knew about life. Or death. So many things."
Her friends started a GoFundMe page to help pay her medical bills. "Jael, being the selfless person that she is, has helped countless people throughout her life as an advocate for recovery and social justice," the page reads. "She has offered everything she has to people in need; no matter what their situation, she is always ready to help with an empathetic heart and nonjudgmental spirit. She has created 'gofundmes' for literally dozens of her friends, and it is now time for us to pay her back. We have the chance, and honestly the obligation, to step up and return the favor." The page reached nearly $19,000 of its $30,000 goal.
When she announced her diagnosis on October 4, she said she needed miracles. "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," Strauss wrote. "It has aggressively spread throughout my body and is incurable. 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."
The 2013 reference was about her addiction problems. She had since gotten sober and was open about her recovery. "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, Service work feels better than the greatest high, Sobriety makes you weirder not normal and I'd be dead if it weren't for all the love and forgiveness I've been showered with by my friends and family," she wrote in an August Instagram post.
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