Lucy Markovic, Australia’s Next Top Model Star, Dead at 27

The modeling world is mourning a tragic loss.

Lucy Markovic, a model whose star rose while on Australia’s Next Top Model, has died, her loved ones confirmed. She was 27.

“Dear friends and family, I regret to inform you that Lucy has passed,” read a message shared to Lucy’s Instagram Story April 10. “She was at peace. Me, her mother and my mother were present with her.”

The message continued, “We ask you to please give us space in these hard times. May Lucy rest in peace.”

According to Lucy’s modeling agency in New York, Elite Model Management, the young model died “after a brave battle” with a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM). According to the Mayo Clinic, an AVM is “a tangle of blood vessels that creates irregular connections between arteries and veins in the brain.”

Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports that Lucy wrote on social media about her condition last month, in a post that appears to have since been deleted, in which she shared with followers the AVM was “the size of a golf ball.” The post noted that she had been scheduled to undergo surgery on March 26, but that it had been rescheduled to April 2.