Child actress Millena Brandão has died after suffering 13 heart attacks. She was 11 years old.
“Open letter to my little girl 🖤On May 2nd we lost our little girl, but I’m sure she’s in the arms of our almighty father and in a beautiful place to play,” Millena’s parents, mother Thays Brandão and father Luiz Brandão, wrote in Portuguese via an Instagram statement shared on Sunday, May 4. “The memories we spent together will remain in my memory and I’ll never forget your joy that was contagious to everyone around you.”
The message continued: “My girl, I’m already missing you more and more not having you here and I know I’ll miss you even more in the days to come! You were the light in our lives and I know that from up there you’ll continue to watch over us and light up our lives 🩷.”
The parents concluded that they’ll love their daughter “forever” and she will remain in their hearts.
Loved ones and fans took to the comments section to send their condolences to the family.
“😢😢😢 rest in peace beautiful princess… we are going to miss you 😔😭,” one user wrote while another replied, “My condolences mommy, to the whole family 🙏🕊️, she will always be watching over you.”
After confirming the news of Millena’s death, Thays and Luiz spoke to Brazilian outlet G1 about an illness that she had been battling that led to multiple hospital visits.
“She got worse, with two to three cardiac arrests per day. She had 13 arrests in total,” Thays told the outlet in Portuguese on Monday, May 5. “She had never had that before. There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks [with a defibrillator].”
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According to Millena’s mother, the young actress ended up being intubated and did not regain consciousness. The parents ultimately decided to take their daughter off life support.
“I said that if we were to let her little heart stop beating on its own, we would suffer more, and so would she,” Thays said. “And we asked for the machines to be turned off.”
An official cause of death has yet to be released.
Millena began her acting career in October 2023. She made her debut on SBT [Brazilian Television System] and appeared in A Infância de Romeu e Julieta, A Caverna Encantada and Netflix’s Sintonia.
