- 5 weeks ago
Category
đ„
Short filmTranscript
00:00My 600-lb Life documents the lives of morbidly obese patients,
00:04telling their stories as they try to lose weight under the care of Dr. Now.
00:08Already at high risk for health problems,
00:09here are some of the stars who have sadly passed away since their time on the show.
00:14Henry Foots appeared on Season 1 of My 600-lb Life. At the beginning of his episode,
00:18he weighed 715 pounds. By the end of his seven-year journey,
00:21he weighed 275 pounds for a total weight loss of 440 pounds. The jovial man's weight loss
00:27was one of Dr. Now's biggest success stories. But the rest of his story is tragic. Foots had
00:32personal setbacks as he tried to lose weight on the show, like the death of his father
00:35and the loss of his job after he put so much effort into rejoining the workforce.
00:39Additionally, Foots' heart stopped amid one of his excess skin removal surgeries,
00:43and he had to be resuscitated. He talked about the experience during his episode, telling viewers,
00:48"...I saw a white light. It was just like having an out-of-body experience. There was a light to
00:52take me to heaven. I wasn't ready for it." He said that he had more to do in life.
00:56Like Mary, his longtime girlfriend, and the duo wed at the end of the episode.
01:00"...To some people, I'm still considered obese. But they don't know I'm on the downside to me, no."
01:08After filming, however, Foots faced more hardship. Click2Houston.com reported that in November 2012,
01:14he suffered a medical episode while driving a commercial bus and lost control of the vehicle
01:18at an intersection, killing a pedestrian. Foots died less than a year later, on May 16, 2013,
01:23at age 54. While Foots' cause of death is unknown, the Cinemaholic reports that it was not related
01:28to the accident or to his weight. Sean Milliken was introduced in Season 4 as a young man who was
01:34entirely dependent on his mother Renee, and who weighed 1,003 pounds at his highest weight.
01:38"...I'm a prisoner. All I want is out."
01:41Milliken explained that he began overeating as a child in order to cope with his parents' divorce.
01:45It was this, combined with Milliken suffering a debilitating leg injury in high school,
01:49that led him to become bedridden. Reluctant to join Dr. Now's weight loss program,
01:53Milliken's attitude, and the fact that his mother enabled him not to follow his strict diet,
01:57caused the doctor to hospitalize him.
01:59"...You may be heaviest person alive right now. This is not a good place to be.
02:03At your weight, it's a miracle that you're alive."
02:06Eventually approved for weight loss surgery, Milliken got down to 548 pounds, but he started
02:11gaining weight again, a journey that was detailed in his My 600-lb Life, Where Are They Now? episode.
02:16In 2017, Milliken's mother died of renal failure, and soon after, he lost his home in Hurricane Harvey.
02:22In February 2019, TMZ reported that Milliken died at the age of 29 of complications from an infection.
02:28TMZ cited a Facebook post from his father which said,
02:31"...Sean was having problems with his breathing. They were able to resuscitate him,
02:35and a short time later, his heart stopped."
02:37My 600-lb Life star James King appeared on Season 5 of the TLC series. In his episode,
02:42King revealed that food became his, quote, joy and safety throughout his difficult childhood.
02:46In addition to his family struggling financially, King barely knew his mother,
02:50who wasn't around as she battled alcoholism. Shortly after reconnecting with her when he was 15,
02:55his mother died of liver cancer. During her funeral, the family's home burned down.
02:59Although King sought Dr. Now's help, he actually gained weight throughout the process,
03:03beginning the show at 735 pounds and weighing in at 788 pounds at the end of his documented journey.
03:09When King appeared on the My 600-lb Life, Where Are They Now? spinoff, he weighed 840 pounds,
03:14before going down to 600. However, he is also one of a handful of patients who Dr. Now discharged.
03:20TLC stopped filming King because he apparently wasn't cooperating with the process. In April 2020,
03:25the U.S. Sun reported that King died at the age of 49 of kidney failure caused by septic shock,
03:30with a source revealing,
03:31"...he weighed about 500 pounds when he passed away. He would have been proud of himself."
03:35Robert Buchel was sadly the first of three participants featured on Season 6 of My 600-lb Life
03:40to pass away. Buchel grew up around fattening food, as his family owned a fried chicken restaurant.
03:45He later used food to cope with trauma, beginning at age nine, when he was sexually assaulted by a
03:50neighbor. However, Buchel's eating habits were at their worst after his brother died because he felt
03:54guilty for being alive. Buchel was 842 pounds when he began his weight loss journey with Dr. Now.
04:00He was determined to lose weight so that he could meet his fiancée, Catherine,
04:03halfway down the aisle at their wedding. Buchel's body was in such bad shape that he couldn't undergo
04:07weight loss surgery right away, but he did have lymphedema removal surgery. While he eventually
04:12lost 340 pounds, according to Starcasm, Buchel got depressed post-surgery and started refusing to
04:17exercise and comply with the program. He died of a heart attack at age 41 in November 2017.
04:23Lisa Fleming's story was told on Season 6 of My 600-lb Life. She was also one of the most difficult
04:28patients we've seen Dr. Now deal with on camera. Fleming told viewers in her episode that she had
04:32developed eating issues early on in life. When we met her, Fleming, who was bedbound,
04:37explained that she used food to cope with her parents' divorce, her struggles as a very young
04:40teen mom, and her brother's death in a fight outside her home. Fleming was 704 pounds when
04:45she started Dr. Now's program. When she failed to make much progress on her own without a hospital
04:50controlled diet after six months, however, Dr. Now had to drop her as a patient. Fleming's daughter
04:54Danielle later told TMZ that her mom lost 200 pounds following her episode, but died at her home from
04:59other health problems in August 2018. Fleming was 50 years old.
05:04Kelly Mason appeared on Season 7 of My 600-lb Life. With an extensive history of health issues,
05:09including type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure, she weighed in at 726 pounds.
05:14According to Monsters & Critics, Mason's already poor eating habits
05:18she essentially grew up on fast food and found comfort in eating amid her troubled childhood
05:22got even worse after she was sexually assaulted by a neighbor at the age of nine.
05:25After her abuser died in a car accident, she ate even more due to her guilt over feeling relief.
05:30She later overate to cope with a miscarriage when she was 19.
05:33And I didn't think my life could end up like this.
05:37Mason was one of Dr. Now's hardest working patients. She eventually qualified for surgery
05:41after hospital and rehab stays, and her weight got down to 383 pounds. Unfortunately, Mason's weight loss
05:47didn't prevent her heart from failing, and she died in her sleep during the 10th month of her
05:51film Journey in February 2019. According to Distractify, she was 41. During Mason's episode,
05:57Dr. Now told viewers that he had been hopeful that her heart health might improve,
06:00because her weight loss had been on track.
06:02She was working hard and doing what she needed. But despite that,
06:06the damage to her heart up to this point was just too severe.
06:10Khaleesa McMillan appeared on Season 8 of My 600-lb Life. McMillan started the show at 643 pounds.
06:16She explained during her episode that she started eating to deal with family trauma,
06:20including her father's alcoholism, her mother's death, being separated from her siblings and put
06:24in foster care, and alleged sexual abuse at the hands of biological family members. Later,
06:29she said, she got into an abusive relationship. McMillan also survived a heart attack at 39
06:34years old, and later grieved the sudden death of her fiancé after a fatal car accident. While McMillan
06:39struggled with Dr. Now's diet, she was approved for weight loss surgery because she was making slow
06:43progress, and Dr. Now had concerns that she had an intestinal blockage. At the end of her episode,
06:48she had lost 145 pounds in total, and she described Dr. Now as her, quote, own personal angel.
06:53McMillan seemed to be a success story, but she later suffered complications from her surgery
06:57when a suture popped. According to Starcasm, she was hemorrhaging, septic, and put on life support.
07:02McMillan eventually did wake up, but her body unfortunately couldn't overcome the complications,
07:07and she passed away at the age of 41.
07:09James L.B. Bonner has one of the more tragic stories on My 600-lb Life, but his actual weight loss
07:14journey was a striking success. Bonner weighed 642 pounds when we met him, and during his last
07:20weigh-in on the show, he was 326 pounds, around half his original weight. Bonner had previously
07:25started overeating as a child, to cope with the death of a beloved aunt who would always give him
07:29snacks. But following his Season 6 episode, the star was eating healthy meals and maintaining an
07:34exercise regimen. Sadly, despite his success on the show, Bonner was internally struggling.
07:39According to TMZ, he was found dead when the police came by to perform a welfare check on him
07:44in August 2018. The 30-year-old's death was later ruled a suicide. In a cryptic Facebook post before
07:49his death, Bonner thanked those who had supported him during his journey, writing,
07:53"'I just want to say thank you to everyone who has shown me love and support throughout my journey.
07:57I've realized a few things over the last few days, and it's time that I face my demons head-on.
08:02Again, thank y'all so much. Please don't ever let people you care about not know how you feel."
08:06If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
08:11Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. That's 1-800-273-8255. Or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.
Be the first to comment