Photo: Alexa Valiente/Instagram
A 27-year-old Emmy-winning ABC News producer died Friday night after suffering from health issues for months, the network announced.
Alexa Valiente worked with the network for six years, serving on shows includingNightline,20/20andPopcorn with Peter Travers, ABC News said in a statement. The circumstances surrounding Valiente’s death are unclear, but the network said her passing came as a surprise to those in the newsroom who knew her well.
“Always a friendly face in the halls, she had an upbeat spirit, a curious and brilliant mind and a real passion to see the world,” ABC News president James Goldston said. “She will be deeply missed.”
Valiente was awarded an Emmy in 2018 for her work on20/20‘sLas Vegas: Heartbreak and Heroes,about the deadly mass shooting in 2017 thatkilled 58 people and injured hundreds more.
Valiente shared her life on Instagram, posting colorful photos of herself smiling in chic outfits on various trips.
“That she is gone at 27 is just cosmically wrong. On a mission to visit a new city every month, #jetsetalexa came at life with a humanity that made room for all of us who were lucky enough to fly in her orbit,” he wrote. “Alexa’s flying somewhere else now, but she’s always in our hearts and always @twentysomethingchic.”
Her colleagues at ABC Newsset up a GoFundMefor Valiente’s family, so far raising more than $8,000 — surpassing their $1,000 goal. The page describes Valiente as a “smart and tenacious journalist” who lived life to the fullest and brought joy to the newsroom constantly.
“Every Friday afternoon, with just enough people still in the office to enjoy it, Alexa would treat the staff to ‘Flashback Friday’ — a weekly jam session at her desk where she’d play classics from Backstreet Boys, Usher and Britney Spears to sing and dance along to,” Allie Yang, an associate producer who worked with Valiente, said in the statement. “She was lovingly referred to as ‘DJ Lexi Lex on the Dex.’ “
source: people.com
