Sydney Towle, a TikTok creator who documented her fight against stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer, has died at the age of 26. Her family announced her death on Thursday, nearly three years after her initial diagnosis.
Family's announcement
In an Instagram post, her family expressed their grief: "We will always love you so much Sydney," the caption read. "I am so proud of how hard you fought. I love you." Earlier this week, they had shared that she had entered hospice care.
Towle gained fame by sharing her life as a young, spirited woman with cancer, encouraging her over one million followers to reconsider what a cancer patient looks like and how they live.
Her journey
In 2023, Towle was living in Los Angeles after graduating from Dartmouth College. She worked in remote-office marketing, enjoyed surfing, and posted bikini selfies and dance trend videos online.
A bulge and burning sensation in her abdomen led her to urgent care, where she was eventually diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer typically found in adults over 50. "The doctor thought I had a hernia, but he was like, 'I'll send you in for an ultrasound, just in case,'" Towle told Today in 2024. "I got an ultrasound, and it showed a solid mass."
She turned her ordeal into content, creating videos of a hike in Spain during a solo European trip, her mother wrapping her head in ice packs to combat hair loss from treatments, and the daily struggles balanced with gratitude and hope.
Facing skepticism
Towle blended her cancer journey with lifestyle posts and faced online trolls who doubted her condition. "I'm not a television show that you're watching, which I think people have a really hard time understanding," she told the New York Times in a 2025 profile. "I'm not a fake character. I'm a person."
In a TikTok posted last year, she danced in her apartment advising fans: "Go get a pint of Ben and Jerry's, watch your favorite movie, remember that life is good and bad things happen sometimes but that doesn't make it a bad life."
Impact
Melinda Bachini of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation told the Times that Towle's role as an influencer helped her audience reconsider living with a serious illness. "Syd had a keen sense of how sharing her life could help others, and she used that to promote understanding of young adults facing cancer, the importance of research funding and the beauty of living life in the moment," she said.
Following the death announcement, her mother and brother Austin Towle's TikTok video update received an outpouring of condolences.
