The Bachelor star Hailey Merkt dies at 31 three months after being ‘leukemia free’
The Bachelor season 21 star Hailey Merkt has sadly lost her life. Hailey appeared on Nick Viall’s season of the ABC show in 2017. The reality TV alum was 31 years old at the time of her death. She sadly lost her battle with cancer after “courageously fighting for her life.” Hailey Merkt died on […]
The Bachelor season 21 star Hailey Merkt has sadly lost her life. Hailey appeared on Nick Viall’s season of the ABC show in 2017. The reality TV alum was 31 years old at the time of her death. She sadly lost her battle with cancer after “courageously fighting for her life.”
Hailey Merkt died on July 26, 2024. On July 30, her family shared the tragic news of her passing via her Instagram page. With “broken hearts” they explain how the 31-year-old Bachelor alum faced her cancer journey with “unimaginable strength, grace, and selflessness.”
Hailey Merkt dies after cancer battle
Just three months after declaring on her GoFundMe page that she was “leukemia free,” Hailey Merkt has passed away.
The Bachelor star died on July 26 after a battle with cancer. She documented moments of her journey online, taking to Instagram last October to say that she was receiving “treatment.”
On April 17, she shared an update via GoFundMe to tell her community that she’d received a call to say she was “cancer free.”
However, the leukemia returned. The donations page reads: “After the bone marrow transplant had taken, she was told she had nine months to not even think about cancer, but in truth she only had 6 weeks before she got the terrible news that leukemia cells were back and moving fast.”
A message to anyone who donated to Hailey’s GoFundMe, also reads: “I don’t think you’ll ever fully know what a lifeline it was. It took the sudden and immense strain of worrying how to pay for the rent, living expenses, her medications, her trial medicine which did in the end give her an extra 8 irreplaceable months, and later her beloved dog Snuggles getting cancer and having his tumour removed. It gave her the ease to feel she was still living her life in the time she had left.”
She ‘fought for her life’
Following the tragic news of Hailey’s untimely death, her loved ones describe her as a “beautiful soul,” adding how they were “in awe” of how “courageously” she fought cancer.
Upon finding out the leukemia cells were back, the 31-year-old said: “I don’t care about myself anymore, but I can’t bear being the cause of so much pain for the people I love.”
Per her GoFundMe, Hailey lived the last moments of her life the best way she could: “She decided she wanted to live every last minute she had to the fullest: being with the people she loved and doing the things she loved, and she loved doing so many simple things.”
Her donations page is open for anyone else wishing to offer support in lieu of flowers until August 10, 2024 at 12:01 a.m.
In the US, contact Cancer Care at 800‑813‑HOPE (4673) or visit this link. You can also call the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-234 or visit their website.
In the UK you can call Breast Cancer Now free on 0808 800 6000 or visit Cancer Research UK , or Macmillan Cancer Support.