Australian model Sahara Ray dead at 34

Australian model Sahara Ray died on Sunday at the age of 34.

Her family confirmed the news in a statement to TMZ on Monday, saying, “She passed away last night surrounded by family at the hospital. She was so loved.”

Her cause of death has not been confirmed.

Ray, the daughter of Australian pro surfer Tony Ray, rose to fame through her modelling career and launched her own swimwear line called Sahara Ray Swim.

She also made headlines for spending time with Canadian pop star Justin Bieber in 2016 and the pair were photographed together in Hawaii.

Ray’s passing comes after she welcomed her daughter, Snow, in January.

Ray’s younger sister Ruby Ray paid tribute to her late sibling on Instagram, writing, “My beautiful big sister, Sahara. The most vivacious, intelligent, hilarious, kind, empathetic and breathtakingly beautiful soul.”

“A force of nature. A light so bright that this world feels impossibly dimmer without her in it. Sahara has moved from this life into another, and I am left trying to comprehend how someone so full of life can no longer be here to live it,” she continued.

“From the moment I entered this world, I looked up to her. In my eyes, she was everything extraordinary about being human. She was magic, she was warmth, she was laughter, she was love. She was, to me, the most incredible person to ever walk this earth,” Ruby wrote.

“How cruel it is to love someone so deeply and have nowhere for that love to go. To have a lifetime of memories behind you, but no more tomorrows together,” the post continued. “I don’t think there are words in any language capable of holding the weight of this heartbreak. I don’t know how to make sense of a world that keeps turning when mine feels as thought it has stopped.”

Ruby called grief “the most excruciating, all-consuming pain.”

“A pain that reaches into the deepest parts of your soul, into places you never knew existed, and leaves an emptiness that no words could ever begin to describe,” she added. “And beneath all this grief, all this disbelief, all this unbearable heartache, is the simplest, most devastating truth.”

Ruby said she wishes she could have more laughter, time and conversations with her “big sister.”

“If love alone could have kept you here, Sahara, you would have lived a thousand lifetimes. I will spend the rest of mine loving you,” Ruby’s post concluded.

In 2024, Ray had shared that she had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which the Mayo Clinic describes as a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves.

It can cause weakness and numbness in the hands and feet before quickly spreading or may lead to paralysis, according to the organization.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is rare and the exact cause is not known, the Mayo Clinic notes.

Ray previously opened up about her diagnosis on Instagram and said that it was triggered “by an acute bacterial or viral infection.”