Kaia Gerber’s heartbreaking message to late brother Presley: ‘I will die loving you’
Kaia Gerber has shared a heartbreaking tribute to her late brother Presley almost a month to the day since his sudden death aged 27.
Taking to Instagram for the first time since Presley’s passing, 25-year-old model Kaia aired her grief at facing the rest of her life without her big brother beside her.
Kaia Gerber has remembered her late brother Presley Gerber, pictured here together in 2018. Getty
“Prez, I don’t have the words. And maybe the tiny mercy is that we didn’t need them all along,” she began a moving letter to him.
“How naive of me to believe that language could transcend grief.”
Presley died at a rehab facility and had been open about his struggles with mental health and substance abuse in the years leading up to his death.
Kaia wrote that even now, a month after his death, she still has “none of the answers”.
“My articulation is no match against this, the magnitude of losing you. I am, quite literally, down on my f--king knees,” she said.
Her letter was accompanied by a sweet home video of Kaia and Presley dancing together as children, and a photo of the two of them as kids staring out to sea from a beach.
Kaia wrote about how deeply Presley’s sudden death on September 20 had rocked her, especially because she had loved being his sister so much.
“It always has been, and will forever be, my favourite thing about myself. I came into this world with a white-knuckle grip around you,” she wrote.
Kaia and Presley as children in a previously unseen family photo. Instagram/@kaiagerber
“I had more love for you than I knew what to do with. And now that it has nowhere obvious to go, I’m certain it’s going to swallow me whole.”
She recalled her brother’s beautiful ability to always see the good in people and said she felt lucky to have been able to witness how “inherently good” Presley was.
Calling her late brother her “ultimate teacher”, Kaia remembered how Presley was always ready to step up and do things first when they scared her.
“I keep thinking about how when we were little, I got scared before getting my ears pierced, so you went first. You always went first,” she wrote.
“But when I held the earring they took from your body, all I could think was: that belongs to you. And I really fucking wish you hadn’t gone first this time.”
Presley Gerber, Kaia Gerber, Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber at an event in LA in May this year. WWD via Getty Images
Despite her heartache, Kaia wrote that she wouldn’t change a second of their lives together – including this new grief – if it meant she got to be his sister in every life.
“I was born loving you. I will die loving you. There was never anything else,” Kaia wrote towards the end of the emotional post.
“I am learning how to love you when I cannot see you. How to tell you something without picking up my phone to call you. How to be your sister in a world that I can’t reach for you in.”
Famous family and friends – including Suki Waterhouse, Cara Delevigne, Paris Hilton, Reese Witherspoon, and more – flooded Kaia’s tribute with words of comfort.
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Her post came at the same time her parents, Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, broke their silence on Presley’s sudden death.
“We are beyond heartbroken to lose our beloved son and brother,” the family began a joint statement shared to Crawford’s Instagram.
“We feel so blessed to have had Presley in our lives for 27 years. He is a sweet, beautiful soul who loved and is loved, now and forever. We are so proud of how he showed up in the world, with kindness and vulnerability.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of love and support from so many who know and love our family and even strangers who feel our pain. ’Til we meet again, our sweet boy. We love you forever, Mom, Dad and Kaia.”
