Yahoo Lifestyle Beloved TikToker Who Documented Battle With Rare Bone Cancer Dies at 22
Beloved TikTok star Leah Smith died Monday after a years-long battle with a rare bone cancer, her boyfriend revealed in a heartbreaking post to her TikTok account on Tuesday.
Smith, only 22, had used TikTok to document her battle with Ewing’s Sarcoma—a rare bone disease that typically only impacts children and young adults.
The English TikToker, who had more than half a million followers, first revealed her diagnosis in 2020, saying she received the horrifying news after she lost all feeling in her left leg and visited a doctor. She’d previously ignored 10 months of back pain prior to her diagnosis, unaware of the horrific cause of the aches.
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A GoFundMe was launched last year to raise money to get Smith alternative treatment as the cancer spread to her lungs, raising nearly $10,000. At the time of the fundraiser, her friend wrote that her cancer had reached stage 4.
In the year that followed, Smith documented her battle with the disease all the way into her final days. The final video where she personally spoke to her followers came on Wednesday, which was followed by her mom posting heart-wrenching messages that said Smith had lost her ability to move or talk by the weekend.
Those updates came just hours before her boyfriend, Andrew Moore, fought back tears in a video on Monday. He said Smith had died around 11:30 a.m. earlier that day.
“We’ll never let Leah be forgotten,” he said.
Moore said that Smith read every comment left under her videos, thanking everyone for being so supportive in her battle. The video announcing her passing had amassed nine million views and 63,000 comments by Tuesday afternoon.
“Anyone who said anything nice ever, it means more than you realize,” Moore said. Smith’s brother, Liam, added in the comments, “Thank everyone for all they have done for Leah and this family.”
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