Author and life coach Iyanla Vanzant has announced the death of her youngest daughter, Nisa.
“It is with great sorrow that we announce the transition of Nisa Vanzant, the youngest daughter of our Beloved Iyanla Vanzant,” read a statement posted to Iyanla Vanzant’s official Instagram account on Sunday, July 30.
“We are asking for your prayers,” the caption continued. “Please respect the privacy of her and her family at this time. Thank you.”
Nisa Vanzant was 49 years old.
No additional information regarding Nisa Vanzant’s passing has been released.
In a written statement to TODAY.com, Iyanla Vanzant said in the wake of her youngest daughter’s passing: “All I need right now is prayer.”
On Christmas Day, 2003, Iyanla Vanzant’s oldest daughter, Gemmia, died after battling a rare form of colon cancer.
Opening up to TODAY co-host Hoda Kotb in 2021, Iyanla Vanzant said the loss of a child “changes who you are.”
“It changed who I was as a woman, first for the worse and then for the better,” “The R Spot with Iyanla” podcast host told Hoda at the time. “God must’ve really, really trusted me to give me a soul to bring into life, and to trust me with the courage to send her out.”
The life coach also shared that the hardships of her life — including Gemmia’s death and a childhood of abuse — are not something she would describe as “difficulties.”
“I would say that the purpose of my life required that I had a depth of experience that would allow me to speak to people in the depths of their pain, in the depths of their sorrow,” the former “Iyanla: Fix My Life” host said at the time.
Iyanla Vanzant also has one surviving son, 53-year-old Damon, who she had when she was 16.
The 69-year-old author and inspirational speaker told MSNBC in 2022 that when facing a crisis, a person should “give yourself permission to have the initial shock and horrification of whatever the change is — the loss of a job, a divorce, even a health crisis.”
“I think what happens is we try to…push through it. No, no, no! Stay there for a couple of hours, even a day or so, and then I promise you it is one step at a time,” Iyanla Vanzant said at the time.
“Sometimes you’ll fall over, and sometimes you’ll stumble ahead, and sometimes you can barely get up,” she added. “It’s one step at a time, and you may not know where that step is going to lead you…One step at a time. That’s the only way you can do it, because you cannot rush through it.”
