Beau Jessup, the 27-year-old daughter of Loose Women star Lisa Maxwell, has died while studying at Columbia University in New York City.
Beau, the only child of the British TV actor and her husband Paul Jessup, was a student in the Columbia Journalism School's M.S. program. The university announced her death in a statement on Monday, November 9.
Columbia Journalism School statement
The school said: "Columbia Journalism School mourns the loss of Beau Jessup, a student in our M.S. program. We extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, classmates, and all who knew and loved her. The J-School is working with Beau’s family to offer support and assistance during this difficult time."
No other details surrounding the circumstances of her death have been released. The family has not yet commented on Beau’s passing.
Background and family
Beau was born in October 1999 and was the only child of Maxwell, who rose to fame as DI Samantha Nixon on The Bill, and Paul, who runs the Great British Teddy Bear Company. The pair married in 2014, after Maxwell proposed to Paul in a leap-year proposal.
In October, just weeks before her death, Beau spoke of how her mother's career and fame piqued her interest in journalism. "As the daughter of a television actress, I grew up with an unusual awareness of the distance between people’s lives and the stories told about them," she shared in an interview with Columbia Journalism School. "I saw how journalism could illuminate someone’s experiences, but also how those experiences could be distorted, simplified, or transformed into a public narrative over which the subject had very little control."
Early ventures and education
As a teenager, Beau made headlines after she created a website designed to help Chinese parents name their newborn babies. Called "Special Name," it required users to pick five of the 12 personality traits they hope their baby will grow into, and then three options would be presented. Beau got the idea during a holiday to China, when she was asked by friends to suggest an English name for their newborn baby.
The website was extremely lucrative for the then 16-year-old, who earned more than £48,000 in the first six months, and she also delivered a Tedx Talk on the website. She said the experience gave her "an early appreciation of both the power and the responsibility of storytelling."
Before moving to New York, she studied at Cambridge University, where she completed a Master's in Writing for Performance. Speaking to the Columbia Journalism School, the 27-year-old expressed her hopes to work as a journalist after graduating in May 2027. "I want to work as a journalist and writer, reporting on people, culture, and social questions with the rigor I’m learning at Columbia," she said. "I’m particularly drawn to journalism for its power and immediacy, while continuing to write for theater when a subject benefits from being explored through a different form."
