My 600-lb Life star Charity Pierce who was once known as 'world's fattest woman' dead at age 50

Charity Pierce, who appeared on the TLC show My 600-lb Life, has died at age 50 after reportedly suffering from various health ailments. 

Pierce's daughter Charly Jo confirmed the passing, writing on her Facebook that her mother is now 'finally at peace.' 

'I wasn't going to post about this. But.. the calling and the texting is making my head feel like it's on fire,' she wrote. 'Almost all immediate family knows so, my mom passed away today. She's up with her momma and brother and sister and she's finally at peace. Charity fly high momma. I hope you know how much I love you and how grateful I was to be able to be by your side while you took your last breath.' 

Pierce, who was once known as the 'world's fattest woman' after weighing in at 778 pounds, chronicled her efforts to lose weight on the TLC series, where she would ultimately drop 440 pounds.  

She passed away with loved ones by her side at 1:20AM on Tuesday, a family source told TMZ.

The source said various medical conditions had resulted in Pierce being placed in hospice care for the past month or two.  

The health issues included lymphedema and fluid buildup in her lungs, with the source saying the fluid was a possible factor in her death.  A cause of death is not yet known. 

The passing comes almost six years after Pierce revealed she had been diagnosed with kidney cancer.

'I found out at Christmas time that I have kidney cancer,' she posted to her Facebook in in March 2020. 'It devastated me bc my mom passed away from brain cancer. So since Christmas I’ve had high anxiety and lots of panic attacks. After lots of testing and a million doctor appointments they figured out the cancer was only in my kidney. The next step was to get my kidney removed as soon as possible before it had a chance to spread to other organs in my body. So on March 2 my kidney was removed. And now I’m recovering at home trying to heal. I just hope the future has something good in store.'

Pierce was first featured on My 600-Lb Life in 2015 followed by appearances in the follow-up show, My 600-Lb Life: Where Are They Now?

In 2014, a housebound Pierce was determined to have her story filmed by TLC as she was convinced it was the only way to save her life - and felt filming the show would motivate her to lose enough weight to be able to travel and see her mother, who was dying of brain cancer.

At the time, although she was almost 200lb (14st 3lb) over the recommended weight for gastric surgery, Houston-based surgeon Dr Younan Nowzaradan took her on, helping her get down to 650lb (46st) over five months, so that he could put her through the procedure that would shrink her stomach to the size of a baseball.

But sadly, the operation came too late for Pierce - who lived with daughter Charly and then- fiance Tony Sauer - to see her mother, who died while she was recovering from surgery.

Yet she faced further procedures to tackle her ongoing health problems, which were caused by an addiction to food that was sparked by seeing her brutal father beat her mother.

In addition to her gastric surgeries, Pierce also had to undergo an operation to remove the large masses of fatty deposits on her legs which weighed 57lbs (4st) on their own.

She almost died after going under the knife again to have 38lbs of excess skin removed more than a year later and the wound became infected. Pierce was rushed back into hospital in danger of going into septic shock.

She appeared on TLC two years later alongside her daughter Charly on TLC's My 600lb Life; Where Are They Now?, where Pierce expressed concerns her daughter had picked up her same unhealthy eating habits. 

But they ultimately managed to turn their lives around, with the pair revealing in the catch-up episode that therapy played a huge part in their new lifestyle, allowing them to address the psychological aspects of their dangerous dependency on food for emotional support.

The mother and daughter duo also explained how they cooked healthy meals and food shopped together.

The pair's lifestyle turnaround came two years after Pierce's first surgery, and she was proud to reveal that she had lost a whopping 440lbs in that time, thanks to the numerous procedures she had undergone - and her ongoing healthy lifestyle.

Indeed, Pierce had been through a remarkable transformation since her first appearance on the show back in April 2014, when she pleaded with producers to let  her feature, having become convinced that it was the only way to save her life.

As the fattest woman in the world, with a developed a medical condition called lymphedema, which caused a huge swelling on her left leg, Pierce couldn't fit into a car, and was desperate to crowdfund the $5,000 to pay for a private ambulance to drive her to the weight-loss hospital in Texas where Dr. Nowzaradan is based.

She wrote on her Go Fund Me Page at the time: 'A doctor in Texas willing to do patients over 600lbs [is] my only hope.

'The one thing that's going to save my life is gastric bypass. But I'm a single mother on disability with no one to count on besides myself.'

Pierce hoped that Dr. Nowzaradan would be able to get her healthy enough to see her ailing mother before she passed away, and she knew that losing a huge chunk of weight would be the only way she would live to see daughter Charly grow up, and make it to her dream wedding to Tony, her boyfriend who is 17 years her junior and served as her carer for much of their relationship.

Pierce told Best magazine that she was determined not to have to get married at home, adding: 'I want to be able to walk up the aisle.'

While she was obese for several years, her weight problems became worse after she developed lymphedema, which blocks the lymphatic system and caused painful swelling in her legs, which made it almost impossible for Charity to walk.

'The lymphedema feels like another whole person. It feels like cinder blocks hanging off you all the time,' she said at the time.

The swelling that protruded out the side of her leg also meant that exercise was totally out of the question, leaving Charity with little opportunity to even try and get fit and healthy.

She first turned to TV show doctors for help in 2012, when she released a video on YouTube pleading for someone to get her case to Dr Phil.

She explained in the clip that she first developed lymphedema in 2001 after falling down a flight of stairs, and then had to fight off flesh eating bacteria, necrotising fascitis in her abdomen.

'They had to cut out 40lb of dead muscle and tissue. My left side looks as though a shark took a big bite out of it,' said Charity.

'It's a very long road, but I'm going to get there,' she said.