Mod Sun is remembering his “special” late ex-girlfriend Sahara Ray, calling her “pure magic” and “a true love of mine” in an emotional Instagram Reel shared Wednesday. The musician (real name: Derek Ryan Smith) posted a striking video of Ray posing with a monarch butterfly that alighted onto her hand, where remained, gently flapping its wings, while the model playfully transferred it to her nose and back to her fingers again.
“This is who Sahara was in this world,” he wrote. “Pure magic. She could turn any moment into art. She walked into a room + all the sudden it was vibrant.”
Smith also shared the fact that he and the model shared the same birthday, and therefore “it always felt like we were sharing the same soul somehow.” He added that she was “everyone’s muse” and he “always called her the “ETERNAL IT GIRL.”
“When I was with her it was the most free I ever felt,” he continued. “She was my inspiration before, during, + long after we dated. She was a true love of mine. She just saw life differently. I really do think she was just too special for this world.” “Everyone knew she was a magical fairy,” the “Flames” singer noted, adding that he will always love her, and that she should “save a spot for me in the forest.”
Ray, who dated Smith in 2023, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 34.
The model was reportedly placed on life support before her family made the heartbreaking decision to take her off it.
Her official cause of death has not yet been confirmed, though a source close to Ray told the Daily Mail that she died after suffering an apparent fentanyl overdose.
Ray’s shocking passing came just months after she welcomed her first child, a daughter named Snow, in January with a man named Michael Bradley Dow.
The model — who also previously dated Justin Bieber and Cody Simpson — is the daughter of legendary surfer Tony Ray and real estate agent Gretchen Gia Bach.
Ray’s younger sister, Ruby, remembered her as a “force of nature” whose larger-than-life personality and loving spirit left a lasting impression on everyone who knew her.
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