Barbara suffered a stroke in December 2021.
My Big Fat Fabulous Life star Whitney Way Thore shared the news that her mother, Barbara Thore, has died. She was 76. The 39-year-old reality TV star said that her mother died from a cerebral amyloid angiopathy.
"Rest In Peace, Sweet Mommy. June 22, 1946—December 7, 2022," the No BS Active founder captioned a post. “My mother died last night just as the credits rolled on her favorite movie. Dad, Hunter, and I held her as she took her last breaths. It was 10:32pm, the same exact time she brought me into this world almost forty years ago.”
Whitney's video tribute was set to the sound of her and Barbara, affectionately known as Babs, having a conversation as images of their time together flashed. The video also featured moments of Babs with Whitney's father, Glenn, and her brother, Hunter.
Whitney shared that after her mother’s first stroke in 2017, the doctors warned her family about the condition. Barbara suffered a second stroke -- which was documented on the reality series -- in December 2021, and another last month.
"My mom had cerebral amyloid angiopathy, which is an untreatable progressive condition caused by proteins in the blood vessels of the brain that can cause dementia, seizures, or like in my mom’s case, brain bleeding (hemorrhagic strokes). When mom had her first stroke in 2017, we were told of this and we knew that more strokes would eventually be inevitable. Mom’s second stroke was December 28, 2021 and her last was November 13, 2022," she wrote.
Whitney went on to remember her mother in the touching tribute, celebrating her "magic."
"My mother is our family’s greatest gift. We could never love, revere, or value another person more. If you’re reading this, you’re familiar with her magic: her southern charm, her hilarious sense of humor, her well-timed witty remarks, her beauty, and her ability to make everyone around her feel comfortable and cared for," she wrote. "But what you can’t possibly understand is the extent of my mother’s love — what you may have witnessed and felt through a TV screen is a minute fraction that, even if multiplied by a million, wouldn’t come close to “real life.” That’s how enormous, how generous, and how all-encompassing my mother’s love was. I am the luckiest person on the planet to have been hers for almost 39 years."
Barbara has appeared alongside Whitney with her father, Glenn, since the series premiered in 2015. During the last season of the show, Barbara's road to recovery and eventual release from the hospital was documented.
Whitney ended her note by reminding her followers and MBFFL viewers just how much Barbara loved them.
"We want to thank you for loving our mother. She delighted in her newfound television career more than we can describe," she wrote. "It gave her such a sense of purpose and excitement and something to look forward to every time the crew came around. This last year navigating life after her second stroke was, perhaps surprisingly, the best of our lives. We never had more fun or laughed as much as we did the past year. The support from all of you made her feel so loved and encouraged. We are unbelievably thankful that we’ve been able to share her with you and it is our hope that her memory will continue to be a source of comfort and happiness for the rest of your lives, just as it will be for ours. I love you, Mommy."
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