Beauty, Lifestyle, And Cervical Cancer: Everything To Know About The Late Jessica Pettway
Jessica Pettway, a 36-year-old beauty influencer known for her hair tutorials on YouTube, died on March 11.
She was 36.
Pettway publically discussed how she was misdiagnosed with uterine fibroids for seven months. She described how she experienced so much pain that her husband Michael "found me in the bathroom unresponsive and not breathing" and that she "had literally passed away."
After being hospitalized for extreme bleeding and abdominal pain that she described as "laborlike," she was referred to an oncologist who diagnosed her with Stage 3 cervical cancer one week later.
Here's 3 things we know about Jessica.
She Was a Popular Hair and Beauty Influencer
Pettway launched her YouTube channel, named after herself, in November 2013. She shared videos of hair tutorials, daily vlogs, and her makeup routines, in addition to brand reviews and behind-the-scenes of her life.
The channel, which boasts of 229,000 subscribers, also included videos of Pettway's personal life. One video, posted 4 years ago, detailed her miscarriage, while another summarized her trip to Chicago and a magazine photoshoot.
"I started this channel to share my love for fashion, beauty and hair. Being a mom does not have to stop you from being fab! So stick around as I share beauty, fashion, hair and lifestyle videos all while being a busy mom," she wrote in the channel's bio.
Her Instagram garnered over 157,000 followers, and included posts of her various hairstyles, skin care routines and fashion.
She Was a Mom
The Georgia-born beauty was a mother of two children, Kailee, 10, and Zoi Lee, 3, whom she often vlogged and talked about on social media.
She revealed online how her daughters and husband made her stop chasing fame, but instead focus on what she considered was more important: family.
RELATED: Beauty Guru Jessica Pettway Dead At 36 After Being Misdiagnosed With Fibroids, But It Was Cervical Cancer
"Living a simple life is such a blessing," Jessica said in 2021. "The older I get, the more simplistic I desire my life to be. I don't want a lot of things. I don't desire to be known. I don't care about accolades. Just give me Jesus and these beautiful humans I'm pictured with, and I'm satisfied. Putting smiles on their faces. Moments we get to create. Memories we get to establish. When you're not chasing a dream, you can live in the beauty of your reality."
Before her untimely death, she shared how she was open to having more children.
While cozying up with her daughter Zoi, she captioned a photo slideshow: "This little face makes me want to make more little faces."
She Was a Wife
In a 2017 YouTube Q&A video, Pettway shared that she started dating Michael in 2005 when they were both teenagers. After hitting it off, Michael reportedly asked Jessica's manager to connect them. The rest was history.
The pair dated for six years before jumping the broom on April 8, 2011, when Jessica was 23.
" 'Young love doesn't last, so don't get your hopes up,' Someone literally told me this about our relationship," Jessica wrote in a January 2022 Instagram post. "Yet here we are, 16 years after that statement was made. Thankfully, we chose to listen to those who encouraged our love versus those who could only see their own failed relationships. Nothing worth having is easy, but nothing too easy is worth having. Excited to see what God does for us in the next 16 years."
Fans are not only rallying around the Pettway family, but the community is also grieving how, statistically, Black women are 41 percent more likely to develop cervical cancer than white women and are 75 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"Being wheeled into the ambulance and waving bye to my kids, only to see them crying for their mommy to stay home, broke me. And watching my husband break down in tears, was rough," Pettway wrote in an Instagram post in August 2023.
That was her second-to-last post on the platform.
Her last social media post one came a day later, when she shared she was visiting family in Georgia because she "needed a change of scenery."
The comment section on that post is now filled with messages from her community of fans grieving her loss.