Angela Yee mourns her brother and reflects on dealing with a sudden death

Yee reflected on what an unforeseen death taught her about how a simple headache could be so much more, and the shock of funeral planning for someone who dies young.

In a moment of vulnerability, Angela Yee shared a few things she’s learned from the death of her older brother, whom she called her “closest person.”

The media personality announced on her “Way Up” radio show that her brother passed away suddenly from an aneurysm at 51 years old. According to Yee, 49, her mother found her brother on the floor of his home. She had gone to check on him because he hadn’t been active on his phone, which Yee said was out of character for him.

“He’s very active in our group text,” she said. “He’s the person where if you call him, he’s gonna answer, if you text him, he answers right back.”

In hindsight, what seemed like “bad headaches” turned out to be much worse. Yee said her brother had been telling her that he had been experiencing headaches for a couple of days leading up to his death. They were so painful that he was taking three Advil at a time to cope.

When the medical examiner who worked on him informed Yee that he died from an aneurysm, it was confirmation of how symptoms can be grave warning signs. She told her listeners, “I just want to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves and our health.”

“When you feel pain like that, and it feels out of the ordinary, it is important to see a doctor – You never know what could happen,” she said. “It’s also not something I would’ve thought either. I’ve had headaches before, and I don’t get them a lot. I probably would’ve did what he did.”

She explained how his unforeseen death taught her to look at life planning more “urgently.” One of the questions that came up while getting her brother’s affairs in order was that she had to decide whether he would be cremated or not, because they had never discussed it.

On the show, she emphasized to her listeners how the tragedy has encouraged her to think ahead of time about preparing for death, because of how unexpected it can be.

“God forbid something happens, it’s nice when things are in place,” she added. “But you never expect it at that young age.”

“Making sure you know whose power of attorney, making sure that people know what it is that you want to happen, having a will, all of those things we discussed, because you do never know when something’s gonna happen,” Yee said.

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Yee also asked for loved ones to send her photos of her brother that will be used during his funeral service. On her Instagram, she posted a throwback photo of her family when she and her brother were just children.

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“He’s a way smarter person than I am, and also just super extremely generous with everybody,” she said. “And so everybody loves my brother.”