Who Is Melanie Ham? Famous YouTuber Dies At 36 After Cancer Battle

Who is Melanie Ham: Popular art and crafts influencer Melanie Ham, who also traced her battle with cancer on her YouTube channel, succumbed to the illness earlier this month. She was 36 and the mother of two children. In a social media post, her husband confirmed her death to her thousands-strong following.

"It is with a heavy heart and deep sadness I share the news of the passing of my sweet, amazing, beautiful wife Melanie," Robert wrote from her Instagram account in a post dated January 13, a day after Ham's death.

"Over the past few months things have been progressively getting worse and we’re thankful that we made it to this point through the holidays and tried to make every moment count. We are short 9 days of our 16 year anniversary," he added, calling her his "best friend all the way to the end."

According to a post on Ham's account, the family is holding a celebration in Ham's honour the coming weekend in California, encouraging attendees to wear "colourful attire."

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Ham had an eight-lakh plus subscriber base on YouTube, where she built a community of people invested both in her art work as well as her journey with cancer. Her knitting and crocheting tutorials, she said, were aimed at "empowering" people's creativity and she loved seeing what viewers created with her patterns.

She was fighting an aggressive epithelioid angiomyolipoma, which is a type of sarcoma that affects bone and soft tissue. Despite surgery, Ham shared the tumour had persisted and she had to switch chemotherapy drugs that didn't seem to be working towards positive results.

In a blog post last year in October, she elaborated, "We’re always trying to stay optimistic that this will be the treatment that works, but the truth is there is no clear path on how to battle this, so we’re just gonna keep fighting."

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"Melanie fought like a warrior queen," Robert wrote in his heartfelt post. He shared a bunch of photos of the influencer, including one from her final days where she is visibly frail. "Please understand the intent of the last one, it is very vulnerable, but am honored to be here with her on this journey," he added.

Several public personalities and online influencers have condoled Ham's death, including Jeannette Kaplun, Matthew Paul Turner, Nikki Phillippi, Brooke White and Jennifer Marshall.