Behind her glamorous public persona, Sahara Ray had privately struggled in the years leading up to her tragic death from a suspected overdose.
“Sahara had been struggling with her mental health in recent years, and it was heartbreaking to witness someone we loved so deeply experience so much pain,” Ray’s good friend Jessica Serfaty exclusively told Page Six.
The “Days of Our Lives” alum — who met Ray in 2015 on set of DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” music video, only to become inseparable for the next 11 years — explained that the late swimwear designer was “beginning an entirely new chapter of her life” after welcoming a baby girl just 11 months before her death.
“I think it’s important to remember that someone’s life can hold extraordinary beauty and profound pain at the same time,” Serfaty said, adding, “One doesn’t necessarily erase the other.”
Even during her most difficult moments, Ray had a close-knit circle of friends and family who stood by her side
“Her mother, Gretchen, who is truly an earth angel, and I came together on several occasions to figure out how best to support Sahara,” Serfaty said. “There were times when we gathered the people closest to her, trying to create a circle of love, stability, and support around her when we felt she needed it most.”
She added, “When you love someone who is struggling, you want so desperately to find the right words, the right solution, the one thing that might make everything better.”
Despite all of their efforts and love, Serfaty said there wasn’t “an easy answer” on how to help.
“But I hope Sahara always knew how deeply she was loved,” Serfaty said. “There were so many people who cared for her, who showed up for her, and who wanted nothing more than to see her happy and at peace.”
When asked what she wished people understood about Ray’s struggles, Serfaty said she hoped people would recognize just how lonely someone can feel, even when “surrounded by love.”
“You can have family, friends, a room full of people who adore you, even thousands or millions of strangers following your life and celebrating your beauty, and still feel completely alone,” she said, referring to Ray’s nearly 1 million followers on Instagram.
“I think we sometimes confuse being admired with being understood, or being surrounded by people with feeling connected to them. But those are very different things,” Serfaty said.
The soap actress, 35, explained that no one really knows what anyone is fighting behind closed doors.
“If there’s one thing I hope people take away from Sahara’s story, it’s to lead with compassion. To be gentler with one another. To check on the people who seem to have it all, the ones who make everyone else laugh, the ones who appear to be shining the brightest,” she said.
“Because sometimes those are the very people who need our tenderness the most.”
Serfaty hopes Ray will be remembered for the joy she brought to those around her, rather than the challenges she faced toward the end.
“She was so much more than the difficult chapters of her life,” she said, describing her late friend as a woman full of “laughter, adventure, mischief, tenderness, and magic.”
“She was the girl who would turn an ordinary afternoon into a memory you’d carry for the rest of your life,” Serfaty recalled.
She also remembered Ray’s love for animals and nature, her generosity toward others and her “beautiful” ability to make life feel “a little less ordinary.”
“I hope people remember the girl dancing on the beach, the fairy wandering through the redwoods, the friend who always made room for one more person at her table,” she said. “Above all, I hope they remember that she was a human being before she was ever a face on a screen or a story in a headline.”
Ray died on Sunday after reportedly suffering a suspected fentanyl overdose in Los Angeles. She was 34.
“She passed away last night surrounded by family at the hospital. She was so loved,” her family told TMZ in a statement Monday.
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.
Her shocking passing came just months after she welcomed her first child, a daughter named Snow, in January with a man named Michael Bradley Dow.
Sahara — who previously dated Justin Bieber, Mod Sun and Cody Simpson — is the daughter of legendary surfer Tony Ray and real estate agent Gretchen Gia Bach.
Bach shared a heartbreaking update on how she was grieving the loss of her eldest daughter in an Instagram Story Tuesday night.
“Laying on top of an Airbnb bed somewhere in LA at 1 AM wearing Sahara’s clothes and sobbing as I read and repost the love letters and tributes to my first born daughter,” she wrote along with a broken heart emoji.
Earlier that day, Sahara’s younger sister, Ruby Ray, remembered her as a “force of nature” whose larger-than-life personality and loving spirit left a lasting impression on everyone who knew her.