Talia Castellano

Talia Castellano was born on August 18, 1999 in Orlando, Florida, to Desiree Castellano and Marc Winthrop. She had three siblings, Kaitlyn, Jackson and Mattia. After her first diagnosis, Talia bonded with Tammy DeLaRosa, a family friend who also had been a cancer survivor. It was DeLaRosa, who first taught her how to use makeup and thus gave her the motivation to start her YouTube channel. Along with makeup, Talia also talked about her battle with her aggressive cancer in some of her videos, and had stated that she had overcome the fear of death. She believed that when it would be her turn to go, she had to go eventually.

As revealed by her in her videos, her cancer, with which she had been first diagnosed in 2007, was very aggressive. She was cancer free for a year after going through chemotherapy, surgery, radiation as well as antibody treatments. However, the cancer relapsed later with a small lymph node near her heart, after which she again had to go through treatments which included surgery, and later radiation and chemotherapy. She became cancer free once again, but it returned again after almost two years. With chemotherapy and surgery, she became cancer free for a third time. However, her cancer came back for the fourth time in 2011, and as stated by her in her videos, it was very severe and had spread to her bone marrow. She passed away on 16 July 2013, at the early age of 13, just around a month before she would have turned fourteen. Despite her short and painful life, she had appeared in many popular fashion shows in order to help raise money for cancer research. She also helped raise awareness about how to help cancer patients.

Her father, Marc Winthrop, tried his best to find a cure for neuroblastoma during her illness, for which he co-founded a charity ‘Band of Parents’, which later became one of the biggest supporters of neuroblastoma research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a renowned cancer treatment and research institution in New York City.

Talia Castellano began her YouTube channel while undergoing cancer treatment. She soon became famous because of her unique makeup tutorials that specifically dealt with the makeup issues girls with cancer faced. Her first makeup video ‘Crazy Eyeliner’ was uploaded in August 2011. It gained over 30,000 views and encouraged her to make more such videos. Within a span of months, Talia received considerable popularity and soon her talent was discovered by Covergirl cosmetics who signed her to a year-long contract. It was worth $100,000. Her unique talents were also noticed by Ellen DeGeneres, who invited Talia to her talk show as a guest.