Brandi Mallory, one of the stars of the reality TV series Extreme Weight Loss, died on Nov. 9 of this year. Recently, disturbing details about her death have emerged. TMZ reports that Mallory’s body was discovered in a car in the parking lot of a Chipotle restaurant in Atlanta.
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, as documented in a police report obtained by the site from the Atlanta Police Department, Mallory can be seen in surveillance video pulling into the parking lot at 5:53 p.m. A 40-year-old makeup artist walked into the restaurant, ordered her meal, and then left. She reportedly got back into her car but never got out.
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As noted on the site, a nearby deli owner first noticed the woman’s lone vehicle the following morning and thought she was sleeping. However, he became more concerned when the vehicle remained parked until later that day.
Police do not suspect foul play or that Mallory’s food contributed to her death, according to TMZ. Currently, an investigation is underway into Brandi’s death.
Back in 2014, Mallory talked about her experience on “Extreme Weight Loss” with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Having lost a sorority sister to a heart attack, Mallory explained, “That scared me. When my sorority sister passed, I started to live in fear about when my time would come.”
“I didn’t know what to do or where to start. I just knew I needed to get moving,” said Mallory, who weighed about 366 pounds at the time. As a result, the makeup artist started walking and hiking, and she lost weight on her own. She also applied to compete on The Biggest Loser but did not make it.
After being directed to Extreme Weight Loss instead, she cried after trainer Chris Powell told her she had been selected for a “transformation of a lifetime,” and she “broke down crying.” Mallory said, “I started looking at things differently. I realized that food wasn’t meant for taste or comfort. It was fuel.”
During the show, she also competed in a Half Ironman Triathlon, losing 151 pounds in the process. Upon Mallory’s passing, Powell told PEOPLE, “It’s so sad that she’s gone because of who she was for so many, including myself. She was just an incredible person.”
He continued, “She was so spunky right off the bat, and she just danced everywhere. She was always just enrolling everyone in her positivity. It’s funny because you’re like, okay, we’ll see where this goes in two weeks… and she was still just that. Then, after four weeks, she was still glowing.”
“And then after two months, I’m like, alright, she’s legitimately just a bright, shining light for everybody around her. And that’s why obviously the news of this, it hit everybody really hard. She just had that spark of life and love,” he said.
After Mallory finished the triathlon, he recalled how emotional it was, saying, “I mean, we were all exhausted, and all of us just broke down and started crying together and just hugging each other because it was just such a monumental moment for all of us in our lives. I’m lucky just to have had the opportunity to share that with her.” Powell added that “spending a year with someone, you go through a lot, and we share a lot.”
In addition, the trainer praised her attitude, saying, “She really owned the body positivity movement. It was great because she was very open about her struggles with her weight and everything, but the fact that she would just get out there and she would just fully express herself, you could feel how free she was. And that, in turn, inspired so many other people to jump on board to accept and embrace and appreciate their bodies.” In the wake of her reality show appearance, she became a social media influencer focusing on fitness and her work as a makeup artist.
