Daniel Wright Biggest Loser contestant dies of leukemia cancer. How the former reality show weight loss contestant touched millions and affected cast-mates.
A former competitor on NBC’s ‘The Biggest Loser,’ died Sunday of leukemia, fellow weight-loss reality show contestants first reported on social media.
Daniel Wright, who competed on the show’s seventh and eighth seasons, was 30 years old, according to The Hollywood Reporter at the time of his death. He was reportedly diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2017. The disease develops when the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes, which is a type of white blood cell.
Courtney Crozier Respess, a former cast-mate, posted on Facebook that she was heartbroken about the news.
‘He has fought SO HARD during his battle with cancer & more,’ she wrote. ‘This man is one of the kindest people I have ever met & is a true difference maker in this world! His faith has never faded, even in the darkest of times. I am honored to have known him!!!’
Wright first appeared on the reality weight loss show in 2009, where he weighed 312lbs (22 stone) aged just 20.
By the finale for that season- he’d a total of 142lbs – nearly half his body weight.
Daniel Wright finds bliss and then despair and continues to fight on regardless:
After meeting the love of his life on the show and supporting one another, the pair married three years later in 2012.
On Valentines Day this year he paid tribute to wife, Rebecca, thanking her for ‘holding him up’.
He wrote: ‘I am so thankful for you. You have held me up through every single inch of this and I adore you. I love you!’
First diagnosed in October 2017, Wright had started to return to work and regain some normalcy in his life when he relapsed with a more severe case of leukemia in December 2018, according to his GoFundMe page.
Within 24 hours of relapsing, Wright was transported by ambulance to an Iowa City hospital, where he spent nearly four weeks dealing with “fevers, infections, low blood counts, chemotherapy side effects, and attempts with immunotherapy treatments,” the GoFundMe reads.
Wright’s wife, Rebecca had taken to social media to give updates over her husband’s failing condition. She posted that he had been fighting a fever and blood clots, and had recently been coughing up blood.
Danny Cahill, the winner from Season 8, posted online that Wright ‘never missed a chance to double back and encourage every soul in the fight of their lives to keep going, and ensure us we would make it. He gave me so many gifts, not only there, but in years after.’
