'My 600-lb. Life' star Sean Milliken dies at 29
Three years after appearing on TLC’s reality show My 600-lb. Life, Sean Milliken has died at 29, the network confirmed Tuesday.
“TLC is saddened to share that Sean Milliken has passed away,” officials said in a statement. “Viewers first met Sean in 2016 on My 600-lb Life when he weighed over 900-lbs. Over the course of his weight loss journey, he victoriously lost over 400-lbs. TLC viewers caught up with Sean this past summer and learned that despite the loss of his mother, he was still continuing in his quest to live a healthier and happier life. TLC expresses its deepest sympathies to Sean’s friends and family at this difficult time.”
Radar Online first reported that Milliken’s father, Matt Milliken, wrote on Facebook that Sean, a “good man” with a “good heart,” died from complications from an infection that left him struggling to breathe.
“Sean was admitted into the hospital a couple days prior, because of an infection,” Matt reportedly wrote on Facebook. “Sunday he was having problems with his breathing, they were able to resuscitate him and a short time later his heart stopped.”
When Sean appeared on the reality show, featuring people struggling with morbid obesity, he had been confined to a bed for years because of his size.
He explained that he began using food to make himself feel better about his relationship with his father when he was a child. He then blamed himself for his parents’ divorce, which only made him feel worse and eat more. By the time he was in high school, Sean said he already weighed more than 400 lbs.
“I felt like it was my fault, I felt like my family had fallen apart because of me,” Sean said on the show.
At the time, Sean was afraid of relocating to Houston, Tex., where the show’s surgeon, Dr. Younan Nowzaradan, practices, to help him shed pounds ahead of undergoing weight loss surgery.
“I’m leaving everything I know to save my life,” Sean said. “This is by far the biggest risk my mom and I have ever taken.”
Sean worried that he was “beyond help at this point.”
His mother and caregiver, Renee, reportedly died not long before her son.
When he died, Sean was living alone in an apartment in Texas, Radar Online reported.
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