January 21, 2019

Very Sad News Today That Brandon Truaxe Has Died

Several news media sources have announced today that Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe has died (Source: WWD)! His cause of death has not be disclosed at this time but we have all been privy to Brandon’s possible mental disorder in his rants, ravings, and erratic behavior across social media.

The news of Brandon’s death was circulated via an internal Deciem e-mail sent to employees. Brandon died over the weekend and all stores and warehouses were instructed to temporarily close upon news of his death.

As you may know Brandon was removed as CEO back in October after announcing the Deciem’s complete shut down. Estee Lauder proceeded to step in and by court decision Brandon was removed as CEO but continued postings to his own social media account.

I’m actually quite sad to hear about this. Brandon’s mental health has always been a hot topic of conversation in the beauty world although, he has denied having any mental disorder. I am left to wonder if he might have committed suicide. I hope that’s not the case and I sure hope he was getting the care and attention he needed no matter what his issues were as he seemed like he needed it. Even though many have speculated about Brandon’s mental heath and potential drug use, myself included, I still found the news he died very shocking and sad!

My thoughts are with him, his family, and friends. This was quite sad to here today.

If you have mental health issues, feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts I do urge you to talk to someone immediately! Your life is very precious!

37 Comments

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • Hollie

    OMG. I can’t believe this! I mean I can, but I can’t.

    So, so tragic.

    Love and light to everyone touched personally by this.

    If you have mental health concerns, PLEASE see someone. Let’s work to end the stigma together. There is NOTHING WRONG with having chemical imbalances in your brain, just like it is not a personal failing to have heart issues or skin issues. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with who you are. You are BEAUTIFUL and there is only ONE of you in the whole wide world. You are quite literally irreplaceable. Please love yourself <3

    • Isabella Muse

      Likewise. It’s sort of surreal. In someways I’m like “I knew this was going to happen!” and in other ways I’m just shocked it actually did happen. Hollie, that was wonderfully put and I couldn’t agree more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • Alli

      Amen!!! I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s time for the stigma of mental health disorders to end!!! The majority of us don’t make fun of or think less of someone with a chronic illness. It’s time for mental health to get the same respect!!!

  • Cil

    I have my own demons and mental disorders to live with so I am sad to know he has passed.

    I hope he was getting the care he needed and something else happened.

    • Isabella Muse

      I’m sorry to hear that Cil! Please take good care of yourself!!!!!! I hope so too but Extra posted that it was suicide apparently 🙁 that makes this even more sad especially since there was discussion he seemed to be silently crying for help as he was on Instagram giving out his personal address. It just seemed like a real cry out for help!

  • Angie Clementine

    Wow, this is such a shame. Brandon was still quite young and very smart; he had a lot of potential to go on and do great things. I’m really sad that he wasn’t able to get help”� if he had, maybe his story would have ended differently.

    • Isabella Muse

      Agreed. I think he was 40 and he was a genius it’s a shame this happened 🙁

      • Jujubes

        I was shocked to see it in the news yesterday. I live in Toronto and his death was headline news here. He was no doubt a genius. What happened was very tragic. There were too many people making fun of him in the thick of it. He clearly needed help. It takes a genius to start up not one but several companies and succeed (the news here said he also started two other brands, one of which was Indeed Laboratories).

        I hope this will make people think twice before using social media to mock and ridicule people with mental disorders and illnesses. 40 is way too young to go and the way he went was really really sad.

        • Isabella Muse

          I admit I was very critical of his social media rants but never mocking him. To me he seemed like he needed help and in some instances he was with people and I had to question why these people/friends/associates weren’t somehow getting him help. But I was still shocked and sad to hear the news that he died. He was indeed way too young to die. He was a genius and he had a whole life ahead of him to create. I just can’t believe it. I’m also somewhat shocked someone didn’t intervene as he was going on for such a long time! The man was on social media for a near year with endless ravings 🙁

          • Jujubes

            I agree with you and I was the same too, he clearly needed help but there were either people egging him on (in his madness) or mocking him. I wouldn’t fault Estee Lauder for ousting him either, as he was single handedly ruining the business he built. It is very tragic how this ended. I read the comments on Yahoo and some people are still mocking him. 🙁 To watch it all unfold and come to this sad conclusion!

          • Isabella Muse

            It’s a weird situation for me because I would think if I started acting as erratically as he did my family or my friends would step in. Having absolutely no experience with mental health issues maybe just stepping in and trying to help might be challenging as I imagine he wouldn’t want the help but hell if it was my friend or family I’d be persistent AF and if I had to I’d use force to get him/her the help they needed. I’m not blaming anyone here but I do hope his friends and family were persistent. There was one occasion he was with a few different people in his vids and just acting out as he normally did and my mind was blown that this person/people sort of ignored it like this was normal. And yes, there was a lot of mocking and egging him on but also, a lot on of people on Instagram, bless their souls, were also trying to help him and urge him to get care/attention he needed. I am so sad for him! It’s such a waste of a life. He was bound for great things!

          • Shelly

            I’m still reeling from the news. I have such a hard time trying to reconcile this terribly tragic outcome after having seen all of his Instagram posts over the past months and all of the comments made, both positive and negative, helpful and unhelpful, caring and uncaring, all of the news and headlines, and all of the urgings of so many people to get him help. I had hoped beyond hope that somehow he would have received the care he needed. It’s beyond awful that this was the result. 🙁

          • Isabella Muse

            I feel the same. I’ve been following it all since it started and even following him on his personal account where it continued and I was just really hoping to see someone step in! I don’t how it got so far without someone getting some sort of order for care. I feel terrible about it. It really saddens me. There were so many people on Instagram that urged him to get help and posted numbers/info where he could. It’s terrible 🙁

          • Eraser

            Mental illnesses are notoriously difficult to treat. Even psychiatrists say this. Most of the time, the victim actually is surrounded by people who care and who very well might have tried to get help. It’s a common pattern for friends and family to be shut out as the worse the person gets, the more inward they turn. Denial is also a huge part of it. Of course the stigma of mental illness is involved with that, but often the nature of the particular disease causes the person to deny that there’s anything wrong and accuse others of nefarious purposes or even causing the problem. Furthermore, there are considerable legal restrictions on what a friend or family member can do -basically, any kind of force is forbidden unless a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation states that the person is non compos mentis and a harm to himself and others. Usually by the time that criterion is met, the person is too far gone. I grew up in a family of lawyers and almost everyone had a case like that instigated by a family member worried about the safety of their loved one – unfortunately, it’s very difficult to obtain the court order unless the person is in a really bad way.

            As for the uncharitable comments online, that seems to be characteristic of social media. Just the other day, I read an article about a different case discussing how social media has become a haven for people jumping to conclusions in their self-righteous outrage, making scapegoats out of anyone who disagrees with them. For a long time, I’ve thought that people use the safety of the computer screen to spew all kinds of things that they would never say in public.

            I only heard of this particular case on your blog. I used a couple of the Deciem products when my local drugstores carried them and I thought they were quite good. I was unhappy when they started to disappear and then I read about all the corporate issues. A sad situation all around.

          • Isabella Muse

            Thanks Eraser for educating me! I honestly don’t have experience with mental illness! I just feel like it was say my sister I’d would just refuse to give up on her and force her to get help she needed somehow, someway! But as you said it probably isn’t as cut and dry as I’m making it out to be 🙁 The internet is a breeding ground for all things crappy. I think it’s likely a really bad place to be if you are suffering from mental illness because it likely just fuels insecurities and other issues :-/ It could be helpful as well but also, very harmful and not just to people with mental problems but everyone really. It really is very sad 🙁

          • Angie Clementine

            Eraser, this is a really excellent comment. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help someone in a situation such as Brandon’s. Unfortunately, based on his posts to social media, he was very much in denial that he had a problem at all, and very resistant to attempts at outreach from colleagues and friends. Any attempts to address the problem directly made Brandon very defensive and almost hostile. The sad truth is that people like Brandon can’t get on the path to recovery until they acknowledge that they have a problem and decide for themselves that they need/want to get better. Could Brandon’s friends and family have done more to convince him that he needed help? There’s no way for us to know. But they are probably all racked with guilt and wondering if they could have done more, and I hope they understand that the sad conclusion of Brandon’s life is not their fault.

  • Rina

    Sadly, he did. He jumped from his 32nd floor balcony to one on the 6th floor, it’s been reported…

  • Christina

    This is such sad news. I was hoping he’d pull through whatever he was going through and get his life going again. So very sad.

  • Jujubes

    I agree with you Isabella. You have to wonder where his family and friends (if he has them) are. He was bound for great things, what a pity it ended this way!

    It looked to me that people around him just put up with his antics and wrote them off as ‘Brandon being Brandon’.

    The last video he posted was heartbreaking. You could tell he was going to do something. I wish someone checked in on him before he was discovered in that way.

    • Isabella Muse

      Agreed! I sure HOPE he had someone. But even EL, they waited SO very long to step in. I wonder why? Too true about Brandon being Brandon I guess after a while it became a cry wolf situation but obviously, he seemed to need some sort of help 🙁 Yes! Also, he kept giving out his personal info. It was like he wanted someone to come to his home and just put a stop to what he intended to do 🙁

  • Kyuu

    Wow. This is pretty upsetting. I didn’t want to speculate about his health problems, but I certainly didn’t think the online beauty fan groups’ words helped at all. They all had the same shallow complaints that people typically voice about typical makeup drama even though his behavior went way beyond that.

    It’s so sad this happened. I wish someone had stepped in to help him…. but it might also be a reminder for us all to be kinder to one another too, in the short time we have together.

    • Isabella Muse

      Nor I. But it was sometimes hard not to as he acted very strangely and erratic. There’s a certain point of from being just eccentric to perhaps something might be wrong. I do think that a lot of people had some really awful comments but also, there were SO many people that made really supportive, touching, and caring comments to him and so many people that really reached out and wanted to offer him some sort of help. If you read through the comments you’ll see. People even went so far as to call the police on him during the luggage incident as they were scared he would hurt himself and maybe even others! I really hope he had the support he needed. That’s my deepest wish! and yes, please, let’s be kind to each other!

  • Nicole

    And to add to the sad news, the co-founder of Benefit cosmetics passed from cancer 🙁

  • Tomi Huntley

    A jumper. So sad. Wish he could have been helped. Mental illness sucks

  • Jodi

    Just heartbreaking!
    I’ve always wondered what truth lies beneath his seemingly insane ravings!
    His integrity exposed an ugly truth about the cosmetics industry. It must have been one hell of battle dealing with a giant like Estee Lauder!
    No doubt if we could peel back the layers, they would be some very valid issues that pushed this brilliant, sensitive, albeit mentally unwell, man over brink of madness!

  • Dori Wittenberg

    Thank-you for providing the space here for us to talk about this. Like others here, I wondered what the post corporate restructuring aftermath would be. A reporter and his designer/heiress mother once spoke on camera when the reporter’s brother did a similar thing after decades of mental illness. Like Truaxe, he had an abundance of resources to his avail, but still there was an element missing. So thank-you again for the opportunity for us to talk about this.

    • Isabella Muse

      Oh my gosh thank you! I’m glad no fights broke out because of the sensitive topic of the conversation! It’s great we all talk maturely on the topic and even educate others on mental illness! I don’t have any experience with it and people like Eraser have chimed in to def make me understand it better and hopefully others that have read this. It’s truly a shame that even with great resources it came to this. It makes you really scared for those that don’t have the resources and money Brandon did 🙁

    • Rina

      That’s Anderson Cooper. Such a sad story. It was his little brother and his mom is Gloria Vanderbilt.