Brandi Mallory, an Atlanta makeup artist and dancer who appeared on season 4 of ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss, has died. She was 40.
Mallory passed away on Nov. 9, according to her online obituary. Her funeral is scheduled to take place on Nov. 20.
The Stone Mountain, Georgia resident’s cause of death has not yet been released, local news station WSB-TV reported Wednesday, Nov. 15.
Mallory rose to national prominence when she appeared on Extreme Weight Loss in 2014. The series was a spinoff of Extreme Makeover and helped people who had more than 200 pounds to lose achieve “life-changing makeovers” over a 12-month journey.
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In a 2017 interview with MadameNoire, Mallory said her weight at one time had climbed to nearly 400 pounds. A member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, she lost a sorority sister to a heart attack at age 29, and decided to take control of her health.
“I saw a commercial for The Biggest Loser on the television. Because they’d just left Atlanta, I booked a ticket for Cleveland, which was their last stop. I went out there, went to the casting call they had,” she explained.
That was in 2012. She didn’t get cast on the show, but said they forwarded her information to Extreme Weight Loss the following year.
“I knew I needed somebody to show me something different in order for me to believe it. Because when you’re morbidly obese and you have to lose a whole entire person, that’s so much more to try and grasp than someone trying to lose 20 pounds,” she told the outlet. “And so the road is longer, mentally you have to think so differently because no one is going through this journey but you.”
She started the show at 329 lbs and her weight eventually fell to 178 lbs.
After the show, the weight began to return and she turned to dance.
Mallory told MadameNoire she loved to dance and eventually worked as a dance instructor for Dance Your Pounds Off in Atlanta.
“It’s the women I’m around when I’m working out with them and we’re dancing together and pushing one another and motivating one another. It’s the energy that’s in that room that I fiend for — literally,” she explained.
Dance Your Pounds Off remembered her with a tribute video posted to Facebook on Nov. 14.
The post included footage of her dancing and was captioned: “We love you Brandi.”
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