TikToker Bella Bradford announces death in posthumous ‘Get Ready With Me’ video
Beloved Australian TikToker Bella Bradford died on Oct. 15 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago.
The 24-year-old, who was diagnosed with cancer in her jaw in 2021, recorded one final “Get Ready With Me” video for her followers just a few weeks prior to her death.
That video, which has been seen by more than 3.9 million people as of Nov. 4, was posted to her TikTok account by her family on Oct. 31.
The video starts with Bradford, in her robe, telling her followers that her life has unfortunately “come to an end,” but she wanted to do one last “GRWM” video for fun.
“I love doing these, and I love fashion,” she says in the beginning of the video.
“Thank you for following me on this fun journey,” she continued. “I hope you will look back on all my videos and find a little bit of joy in your day if you ever need to feel.”
For the video, Bradford wore one of her all-time favorite dresses by St. Agni, paired with a white cardigan, ballet flats and a baseball cap, as she wears so often.
She also shared one of the most important life lessons she has learned through her health journey.
“Remember that you live every day and only die once,” Bradford said, “so everything helps.”
In the caption, she penned a beautiful message to those who supported her throughout the final stages of her life.
“Filming these videos truly brought me a sense of purpose in my final few months and also connected me with a very kind community of people,” she wrote in the letter to her followers.
“I wish you all a beautiful life and please remember to live each day with as much significance as the next,” she added. “What a privilege it is to grow old.”
Bradford’s first TikTok post, according to her account, was published in March 2023, but she didn’t start posting regularly until earlier this year.
Once she did, it didn’t take long for her outfit checks, unboxings and health updates to reach a wide audience.
By the time of her death, she had accumulated nearly 14,000 followers and more than 350,000 likes on the platform.
In a video posted on May 6, she went into detail about her diagnosis and life as a cancer patient.
It all started in 2021 when she thought she was experiencing complications with her wisdom teeth. She was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in her jaw muscle shortly after at 22 years old.
She goes on to explain that she’s now a 24-year-old palliative cancer patient, meaning her illness was incurable. Her treatments included surgeries, reconstruction, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and in vitro fertilization.
That 2023 post was her celebrating the end of her treatment. But as she explains in the May video, she was in remission for five months before the cancer returned.
Throughout her journey, she developed a deep love for the fashion industry, which inspired her “GRWM” videos.
“I found that through a lot of my treatment, I have loved fashion and really went into, you know, keeping up with the fashion industries,” she said at the time.
Bradford went on to post hundreds of videos over the next six months, all the way up to her final video on Oct. 31.
“Thank you guys so much for this wild and wonderful ride,” she concluded in that video. “I hope you all have beautiful and amazing lives, and I wish all the best for every single one of you.”
