Tamera Mowry-Housley’s The Real co-hosts paid tribute to her late niece, Alaina Housley, who was killed during last week’s mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California.
During Monday’s episode of the talk show, which Mowry-Housley was absent from, the co-hosts took a moment to honor the 18-year-old, speaking of her legacy and sending a message of love and support to Mowry-Housley.
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“Alaina was only 18 years old,” Mowry’s co-host Loni Love said as photos and videos of the Sister, Ssiter alum and Housley played on the screen. “She was a freshman at Pepperdine University, the same school that Adam and Tamera attended. She planned to major in English literature and join a vocal music program after being involved in her high school choir. She was also involved in a charity program that donated soccer equipment to young people in the developing world.”
“Alaina’s parents Eric and Hannah and her little brother Alex, they say they want to honor her by focusing on how she lived her life,” Love continued. “They say that she would have enjoyed the public debate that is certain to happen after this tragedy and that she would have insisted to be respectful with every eye toward solving these senseless shootings. I also want to give a shoutout to her grandparent’s Art and Julie Housley. Art watches us all the time. Our hearts are really with you.”
Reading a note from Mowry-Housley’s husband and Alaina Housley’s uncle, former Fox News correspondent Adam Housley, Adrienne (Bailon) Houghton focused on the importance of gun control.
“Before we can even get a consistent national gun policy we have to understand that we as a country and as a society are at crossroads — the hatred, the judgment, the polarizing and the lack of heart,” she said. “We are going to make a change, I can guarantee it. Alaina is with us as we do this.”
At the age of 18, Housley was the youngest victim of last week’s mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 12 people when Ian David Long opened fire at about 11:20 p.m.
Mowry-Housley and her husband had immediately begun searching for their niece in the wake of the shooting, with Mowry-housley communicating on Twitter with the 18-year-old’s suitemate, who claimed that they had gone to the bar to line dance but Housley hadn’t been heard from since. At the time, Adam Housley reported that his niece’s Apple Watch and iPhone still pinged her location as being on the dance floor.
The couple later announced that Housley hadn’t survived, writing in a statement that “Alaina was an incredible young woman with so much life ahead of her and we are devastated that her life was cut short in this manner.”
