Nigerian fashion icon, Yemi Fawaz, has died at the age of 64.
Ms Fawaz reportedly died on Wednesday at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
News of her death was confirmed by her daughter, Magdalene Fawaz, via Facebook on Thursday.
“It is with great sadness that I am announcing the passing of my Mother Deaconess Yemi Fawaz.
“We thank God for her well-lived life and for her strong faith in the Lord Almighty. Her homegoing arrangements will be announced soon.
“I ask that you keep our family in your prayers and I am grateful that she was able to touch you all in so many ways,” the statement read.
Yemi Fawaz is widely credited with pioneering professional modelling in Nigeria and became the country’s first supermodel.
She is said to have had colon cancer for a while as well as a hole in her heart.
The latter-day preacher left Nigeria in 1997 and admitted in a 2016 interview with Encomium magazine that she was frustrated by the lack of proper structure in the modelling industry.
