TikTok star Sydney Towle has died after living with a rare form of aggressive cancer for three years.
Days after sharing that she had entered hospice care, Towle’s family announced the 26 year old’s death on her social media accounts Thursday, one day after she died.
“We will always love you so much Sydney,” the caption on the post read. “I am so proud of how hard you fought. I love you.”
The post showed Towle smiling on a mountaintop along with a message reading, “Rest in Peace Sydney Towle. An endless ray of sunshine. A daughter, a sister and friend to so many.”
Towle used her TikTok platform, which had over 1.1 million followers, to document the highs and lows of living with stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer that forms in the bile ducts.
Cholangiocarcinoma is a rare disease, with about 8,000 people receiving diagnoses in the U.S. each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The cancer is often detected after the tumors are too advanced to be removed.
Towle was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in 2023, while she was living in Los Angeles after graduating from Dartmouth, according to the New York Times. In the fall of 2024, she moved to New York City for treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“I’ve always wanted to live in New York City,” she said in a video, “and life is short, as I’m constantly reminded.”
As Towle’s illness progressed, she had several surgeries, went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy treatments and participated in a number of clinical trials.
Weeks before her death, Towle shared that she was preparing to take on the next phase of a clinical trial that involved tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy
In May, she posted a video with her mother where they said that Towle’s oncologist had recommended transitioning to end-of-life care. However, at that point, they refused to stop treating the cancer.
“My rope is not finished yet. I am tying more on with the love of my family and friends and we will move on,” she wrote on her Instagram at the time. “Continuing to advocate for myself and for others who aren’t able to. Continuing to find solutions that are outside of the box and that may not seem like the straight, or even right, path forward. Because you never know unless you try.”
Towle is survived by her mother and brother.