Johnny Ruffo dead: How Home and Away and The X Factor star credited partner Tahnee Sims for keeping him alive during brain cancer fight
After being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer six years ago, Johnny Ruffo attributes his survival to his longtime partner.
The 35-year-old former star of Home and Away and The X Factor passed away quietly on Friday in a Sydney hospital with family members by her side.
Tahnee Sims, Ruffo’s eight-year companion who shared both the highs and lows of his six-year battle with cancer, was among those there when he passed away.
Only one week separated Ruffo from Ms. Sims’s 30th birthday.
Just two years after the couple’s initial meeting at a dancing class, Ruffo received her first brain cancer diagnosis in 2017.
He never concealed the amazing support Tahnee provided him during his battle with cancer.
In multiple interviews with the media, Ruffo hailed her for “saving” his life and shared innumerable adoring posts.
Johnny Ruffo paid a gushing tribute to his girlfriend Tahnee Sims on her 29th birthday last November. He died on Friday a week shy of her 30th birthday
It was Tahnee who initially drove Ruffo to the hospital after he began experiencing persistent migraines.
A few hours later, she received a call from the physicians informing her that he had a brain tumour that needed to be removed surgically and that he was in a coma.
Two years ago, Ruffo said to Now To Love, “Without her, I may not be here.”
When the headaches initially started, it was her who forced me to get in the car and travel to the hospital.
And she’s motivating me to take action. She encourages me to go swimming and running, which keeps me active.
“I was just at home and I had a headache, but everyone has headaches and you never think much of it,” Ruffo previously said in an interview with Who magazine.
It had been going on for a while, and it was getting worse. When it got to be around four or five in the afternoon, I was completely unable to converse or interact with Tahnee.
‘You’ve had a brain tumour removed,’ they inform me when I wake up on Tuesday. When I at last became conscious, I thought, “Holy sh*t, this is serious.”
According to the doctors, had Tahnee not hurried him to the hospital that night, Johnny would have fallen asleep at home and never woken up.
According to Ruffo, “I would have passed out that night, and Tahnee would have tried to wake me up the following morning, and I would have just been out.”
Ruffo previously revealed it was Tahnee who rushed him to hospital in 2017 when he first suffered severe symptoms. Doctors later told him he would otherwise had died at home that night
A few months ago, the couple had a romantic holiday to a ski resort in Queenstown, New Zealand, taking a break from regular hospital visits and therapy.
In his most recent Instagram post, Ruffo honoured Tahnee with a video that chronicled his six-year battle with cancer.
“6 years after diagnosis—what a warrior!” Tahnee penned.
Ruffo disclosed to fitness gurus Steph Claire Smith and Lauren Henshaw during their Kicpod show earlier this year that the couple is infatuated and never ends a conversation “on a bad note.”
“You know I could have a seizure or something,” he remarked.
And all I want her to know is that I love her, and that was the last thing she said to me.
Ruffo paid a gushing tribute on Tahnee’s 29th birthday last November, just three months after he revealed the devastating news that his brain cancer diagnosis was terminal.
‘Happy Birthday to this strong, incredible, amazing, beautiful lady that I am so very lucky to call my girlfriend, I hope you’ve had the most wonderful day,’ he posted.
A month later, the couple travelled to Ruffo’s hometown Perth for what would be their last Christmas together.
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