Beloved mommy blogger Heather Armstrong, known as “Dooce” by fans who adored her for chronicling her struggles with depression, alcoholism, and parenting, has died at 47.
Armstrong’s death was announced in a post to her Instagram page on Wednesday. “Hold your loved ones close and love everyone else,” it said.
Armstrong’s boyfriend, Pete Ashdown, told the Associated Press that Armstrong died by suicide at their home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ashdown said Armstrong had recently relapsed after 18 months sober but did not provide further details.
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Armstrong, often deemed the “queen of the mommy bloggers,” garnered a massive following in the early 200os that she largely maintained to this day. On her website, Dooce.com, and on her social media accounts, she laid bare her daily struggles and shared her opinions on the world unabashedly.
It was not without controversy. She came under fire last summer for posting anti-trans comments, reportedly writing in a since-deleted post that “white moms need to sit the f–k down and stop allowing their children to decide their gender.”
In her final blog post, published April 6, Armstrong wrote about sobriety and how she’s appreciated the “clarity” her life has had without alcohol. She said that clarity enabled her to be more present for her eldest daughter, 19-year-old Leta, as she prepared for college, and in spending time with her youngest daughter, Marlo, 14.
“Sobriety was not some mystery I had to solve,” Armstrong wrote. “It was simply looking at all my wounds and learning how to live with them.”
Armstrong had recently started going by Heather Hamilton on her social media accounts. She used the name Armstrong for the majority of her career—the surname coming from her marriage with Jon Armstrong, whom she divorced in 2012 (blogging every step of it along the way).
Her blog reportedly had as many as 8 million readers per month at its peak, netting her an estimated $100,000 a year from ads, Variety reported. But her popularity went beyond blogging. She regularly appeared on talk shows, like The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, and was named as one of the most influential women in media by Forbes later that year.
Armstrong leveraged this success to sustain relevancy even as blog readership took a dive with the social media boom of the early 2010s. She went on to write three books about how she parented while fighting depression: The Valedictorian of Death, Dear Daughter, and It Sucked Then I Cried.
An outpouring of tributes and support for Armstrong’s family flooded the comment section of her Instagram on Wednesday.
“Oh, Heather, I’m so sorry your pain was that overwhelming,” wrote Julie Jackson, who runs a stitching blog. “I understand. My heart aches for your family. 😓 May you Rest In Peace.”
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. You can also text or dial 988.
