Influencer Isabel Veloso has died at age 19, following a years-long fight with cancer.
Veloso was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2021. She died on Saturday, Jan. 10, at Hospital Erasto Gaertner in Curitiba, Brazil, according to Brazilian outlet Mix Vale. She had been hospitalized since November 2025.
Over the course of her illness, Veloso documented her experience openly on Instagram, where she built an audience of roughly 4 million followers through candid videos and photos.
Her death comes just months after a deeply personal open letter she wrote to her 1-year-old son, Arthur, spread widely online in October 2025. She shared the message during a period when she was apart from him while undergoing a bone marrow transplant.
In the letter, translated from Portuguese, Veloso reassured her son that she hadn’t “walked away” and promised, “I will be back,” alongside a photo of the two of them laughing together at home.
“Hey there, my love,” she began. “Mom is not with you right now, and I know you feel it … And that smell you are looking for in the air is not yet there … but I want to tell you something: I didn’t walk away. I am here through it all.”
She continued: “In your pillow, in your favorite toy, in the sounds the house makes when you wake up. And mainly … I am inside the reason that got me up one more time: you, my love.”
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Veloso explained that she was in a place focused on healing and told her son she hoped they would be reunited soon.
“I will be strong again. To carry you over. To run with you in the park. To see you growing, smiling, sleeping peacefully. And I will be back. It will take a little while, but I’ll be back,” she wrote. “With the same heart … the same love, with a hug … everything that this longing has done.”
She ended with another reassurance: that she would keep listening “from wherever she is,” that he was never alone, and, finally, “I promise I’ll be back soon.”
Veloso welcomed Arthur with her husband, Lucas Borbas, in December 2024. The couple announced they were expecting their first child in August 2024—eight months after Veloso learned her cancer was terminal.
In 2023, she underwent chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant and was later told she was cancer-free. The disease returned three months later, reportedly with a 6.6-inch tumor in her lungs.
