Lotte van der Zee

The former Miss Teenager Universe died on March 6 at the age of 20, two weeks after having a heart attack on her birthday while on vacation with her parents. The Dutch model’s parents, Bert van der Zee and Eugeniek van der Zee van het Hul, confirmed her passing in an emotional post on her Instagram account. “Our pearl, our everything passed away on Wednesday evening March 6th at 22:47. It is incredibly surreal that our dearly beloved Lotte is not around us anymore. Our hearts are truly broken.” On February 23, her parents posted about their daughter being hospitalized, writing, “Two days ago, during our holiday in Westendorf – Austria, Lotte started to feel unwell throughout the course of the afternoon. A feeling that swiftly escalated in sudden cardiac arrest. She was helped to the nearest hospital where she got into a coma and is since then kept a sleep under intensive supervision of the doctors in order to monitor her health.” In an update on March 2, they posted a photo showing them clasping Lotte’s hand and added that she had been transferred to a hospital in Munich, but her “situation is unfortunately unchanged.” They thanked their daughter’s fans for their messages, writing, “Even though the feeling of powerlessness made us think that we were in this alone at first we were able to draw a massive amount of strength from all your loving support.” Lotte was crowned Miss Teenager Universe in 2017.