Kaia Gerber has paid tribute to her older brother, Presley, in a deeply personal letter shared on Instagram, weeks after the 27-year-old model died at a rehabilitation facility in California.
The post, shared on Sunday, opened with home video of the siblings dancing together as children, followed by a photo of the pair by the ocean and a four-page letter addressed to “prez.” In it, Kaia recalled being too nervous to get her ears pierced as a child, until her brother offered to go first. She wrote that holding the earring later returned to her from his body left her with a single thought: that it belonged to him.
Reflecting on life without him, she wrote that she is learning to love him without being able to see him, and to talk to him without reaching for her phone. "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," she wrote.
Presley died on September 20. According to BBC, the police are treating his death as a suspected overdose, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has listed the case as pending further investigation. The Santa Monica Police Department said there is no sign that foul play was involved.
His mother, supermodel Cindy Crawford, also posted a tribute on Sunday alongside a black-and-white portrait of her son, writing that the family was “beyond heartbroken.” She described him as a gentle, loving soul and said the family was proud of the kindness and openness he brought to the world.
She wrote, "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 feel so blessed to have had Presley in our lives for 27 years."
Signing off on behalf of herself, his father and his sister, she bid her “sweet boy” farewell until they meet again.
Presley followed his mother and sister into modelling, walking his first runway for Moschino at just 16. In recent years, he had spoken candidly about his struggles with mental health and drug use, and regularly posted videos on Instagram under a series he called “Mental Health Mondays.”
His father, businessman Rande Gerber, co-founded a beverage brand Casamigos with George Clooney.