Photo: Instagram/Whitney Way Thore
Barbara “Babs” Thore, who appeared on TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life alongside her daughter, Whitney, has died. She was 76.
Whitney shared the news of her mom’s death on Instagram, where she shared that Barbara died Wednesday (Dec. 7) while watching her favorite movie, surrounded by family. She died at 10:32 p.m., Whitney wrote, which was the time when Whitney was born in 1984.
Along with a montage of photos of herself and her mom over the years, Whitney posted a lengthy tribute to Barbara, writing, “Rest In Peace, Sweet Mommy.”
“My mother is our family’s greatest gift. We could never love, revere, or value another person more,” Whitney wrote. “If you’re reading this, you’re familiar with her magic: her southern charm, her hilarious sense of humor, her well-timed witty remarks, her beauty, and her ability to make everyone around her feel comfortable and cared for.”
“But what you can’t possibly understand is the extent of my mother’s love — what you may have witnessed and felt through a TV screen is a minute fraction that, even if multiplied by a million, wouldn’t come close to ‘real life,'” she continued. “That’s how enormous, how generous, and how all-encompassing my mother’s love was. I am the luckiest person on the planet to have been hers for almost 39 years.”
Whitney also thanked fans for “loving” her mom, telling her followers, “She delighted in her newfound television career more than we can describe! It gave her such a sense of purpose and excitement and something to look forward to every time the crew came around.”
She continued, “This last year navigating life after her second stroke was, perhaps surprisingly, the best of our lives. We never had more fun or laughed as much as we did the past year. The support from all of you made her feel so loved and encouraged. We are unbelievably thankful that we’ve been able to share her with you and it is our hope that her memory will continue to be a source of comfort and happiness for the rest of your lives, just as it will be for ours.”
Barbara had cerebral amyloid angiopathy, a diagnosis described by Whitney as an “untreatable progressive condition caused by proteins in the blood vessels of the brain that can cause dementia, seizures, or like in my mom’s case, brain bleeding (hemorrhagic strokes).”
She experienced her first stroke in 2017, according to Whitney, who said in her Instagram post that doctors told her and her family Barbara would inevitably experience more in the future. She suffered a second stroke in December 2021, and a third on Nov. 13, weeks before her death.
Barbara appeared on all 10 seasons of My Big Fat Fabulous Life, which premiered on TLC in 2015. The show featured her health struggles throughout the seasons, and recently chronicled her recovery from a stroke and release from the hospital, per TMZ.
Barbara is survived by her husband Glenn, as well as her daughter Whitney and son Hunter.