TikTok star Leah Smith has died aged 22.
The social media personality, whose TikTok account has more than 520,000 followers, was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma in 2019, and has been documenting her treatment and experience since.
A video posted to her account yesterday confirmed that Smith had died earlier that day. In the video, Smith’s partner thanked any supporters and well-wishers, and encouraged people to continue “speaking about” her.
Smith’s partner said: “I’m sad to say that she passed away today at around half 11 this morning, but I just want to say thank you to everyone.”
@xx_leahsmith
He continued: “All your comments did help. She did actually read all of them. And anyone who said anything nice ever, it means more than you realised.”
“We’ll all miss Leah and we’ll make sure that we never forget her,” he added. “I want to see everyone speaking about Leah and how amazing she is and how much she helped everyone. We’ll never let Leah be forgotten.”
Smith, who was from Liverpool, had been uploading videos of her experience in hospital, updating her followers on her progress with treatment.
However, Smith stopped posting videos herself at the beginning of the month, her last post sharing with followers that she had eaten dinner for the first time in three weeks, and was proud of herself.
Since then, friends and family of Smith’s have been providing updates on her deteriorating condition, including a post from Smith’s friend today which read: “Leah’s page is going to be used to remember Leah at her good times and we will never stop talking about her.”
Smith’s diagnosis happened five years ago after Smith reported back pain. According to Metro, she said at the time: “I had really bad back pains for 10 months. It was constant then I lost all the feeling in my left leg and I knew something was most definitely wrong.
“I felt like my whole world had crashed right in front of me and it was never going to get better. I felt so alone.”
Last month, Smith provided a significant update on her treatment. In a video posted to TikTok, she said: “The doctors have said there’s no point trying to give me more antibiotics and fluids because it just isn’t working anymore.”
She continued: “‘All the pain meds aren’t working so they really just want to get me to a comfortable state as much as possible.
“Idk what this means for me if it is the end of the journey but all my family have come around and I am just going to act like I’m good and great because quite frankly I am so so scared. I don’t want to die yet. I’m sorry.”
The post TikTok star Leah Smith dies aged 22 following cancer battle appeared first on NME.
