Rest in peace, Jael Strauss.
The America's Next Top Model alum died on Tuesday following a battle with breast cancer, according to multiple reports. She was 34.
Strauss had announced her diagnosis just two months earlier, in October, telling fans in a heartbreaking Facebook post that she was diagnosed with "incurable" stage 4 breast cancer.
"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," she 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," she continued. "I need another one of those miracles that I got back in 2013."
Strauss revealed weeks later that she decided to stop chemotherapy, and went into hospice on Thanksgiving. "So many things I never knew about life,” she posted on Facebook at the time. “Or death. So many things.”
Strauss, who competed on season eight of ANTM, also appeared on Dr. Phil in 2012 to discuss her issues with addiction, and celebrated five years of sobriety in August. Following news of her breast cancer diagnosis, a GoFundMe page was created to help Strauss pay medical bills.
“At the end of September, Jael became very sick and was diagnosed with aggressive Stage IV Rapidly Progressive Metastatic Inflammatory Breast Cancer,” the page revealed. “It has metastasized and spread beyond the breast tissue. She has just begun chemo, but we do not know how things will play out. What we do know is that Jael is putting all of her energy and drive into fighting this insidious disease and can use as much support and love as possible.”
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