A TikTok star from Victoria, B.C., who used the platform to share her experiences living with young-onset Alzheimer’s disease has died.
Rebecca Luna ended her life using medical assistance in dying on Saturday afternoon. She was 49.
She died peacefully while “surrounded by loved ones,” reads a post on the family’s GoFundMe, which was set up to help cover end-of-life expenses.
Last week, Luna announced to her more than 95,000 social media followers that she had decided to move up the date of her MAID appointment.
“I’m living in a body that doesn’t feel comfortable, safe, good,” she said in a TikTok video. “It feels terrible, so the idea of waiting two weeks felt like too much.”
The internet personality said she made the decision during a recent visit with her palliative care doctor.
“She kept reminding me that this was my decision, this whole thing was my decision, this was when I get to prioritize myself, and I haven’t done that my whole life,” Luna said.
“She said, ‘When would you go if it was just your choice?’ And I said now.”
Using the handle WhereDidBecsGo, Luna built up her online following with candid discussions about her diagnosis and the complications Alzheimer’s brought to her life—with video titles such as “Dating while dying” and “Travelling with invisible disabilities.”
She also discussed her journey through sobriety. Facing the end, Luna said she was proud to have stayed off alcohol during the physically and emotionally difficult final months of her life.
“This is not what I want. I don’t want to be dying before I’m 50,” she said in her final video. “But I have had a good life.”
She ended her last public message with a call for her followers to love themselves, something she said it took her years of therapy to learn how to do herself.
“You can’t sit around and hope that you’re going to love yourself, you have to act your way into loving yourself—and that’s by speaking nicely to yourself,” Luna said.
“If I can do it, you can do it, too.”
