‘Gold Rush’ Star Rick Ness Honors Late Mother’s Birthday With Sweet Message

It was a tough day for Gold Rush mine boss Rick Ness, who celebrated his late mother’s birthday Thursday for the first time since she passed away after a long battle with cancer in 2018.

The Discovery reality star wrote on Twitter Thursday, “Happy birthday Mom. You should have been 56 years young today. I miss you and I love you forever,” adding a photo of the two where he’s wrapping his arms around her.

On March 20, the gold miner revealed on social media that his mother had died, leaving his family heartbroken. “RIP Mom. 55 years young,” he wrote at the time. “She left us peacefully in her house and with my face resting against hers she took her last breath. It hurts. It’s not long enough. Cancer is the devil.”

A month prior, he told PopCulture.com that while she was “doing good” at the moment, her prognosis was not good after a re-emergence of the cancer in 2017.

“She’s gone through about as much treatment as she can go through and the cancer’s still there, so the outlook is not good, but for right now she’s happy,” he explained at the time.

After his mother’s death, Ness returned to the Yukon, this time leading his own crew as opposed to acting as Parker Schnabel’s foreman. Jumping back into work so soon, he told PopCulture.com in October, meant that he hadn’t fully come to terms with the loss in his family yet.

“I kind of didn’t have much chance to deal with that, I kind of had a mining season to prepare for,” he said, adding, “So I’ll let you know [how I’m doing] once I deal with it.”

Bringing in a new group of green miners was “stressful,” he added. “Mining is stressful period. I’ve always taken it personally, even when I was running Parker’s operation, so it’s always been stressful for me. So nothing really changed this year, but it was a little different stress. It was kind of my own and I welcomed it.”

Nonetheless, the mining season was a win for Ness, who said of his crew, “They’re hardworking guys though. That’s why I brought them with me, and they were up for the task. And they listened, and we learned a lot together this year, and we grew a lot together this year.”

Photo credit: Twitter/Rick Ness