Sahara Ray, the Australian-American swimwear model and daughter of big-wave surfer Tony Ray, has died at 34.

“She passed away last night surrounded by family at the hospital. She was so loved,” her family told TMZ.

The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Ray’s death comes less than a year after she welcomed her first child, a daughter named Snow.

She rose to wider public attention in 2016 amid reports that she had been romantically involved with Justin Bieber.

That August, the pair were photographed by paparazzi during a skinny-dipping outing.

She was also previously linked romantically to male model Jordan Barrett and Australian singer Cody Simpson.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Ray and Bieber for comment.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Ray grew up surfing. However, she left the sport as a teenager to pursue opportunities in modeling and fashion.

“Every winter I would spend 3 months on the north shore of Hawaii with my dad. He was a professional surfer, so I used to travel all over the with him while he was competing in the pipe masters & big wave competitions,” she told GQ in 2015.

Born in Torquay, Australia, Ray later moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, known as FIDM.

She built a successful modeling career and eventually founded her own swimwear label, Sahara Ray Swim.

Ray was also known for her friendship with British model and socialite Lottie Moss.

Her public profile continued to grow after her reported encounter with Bieber, fueled in part by the revealing images she regularly shared on Instagram.

Many of Ray’s posts featured nude images, while others showed her modeling revealing outfits, including pieces from Sahara Ray Swim.

In 2020, Ray joined the subscription-based adult platform OnlyFans.

In July 2020, she sparked attention by promising to release a “sex tape” if she reached a certain number of OnlyFans subscribers.

Announcing her plans on Instagram at the time, the nude model wrote: ‘Hey guys. I decided to come up with a little game to play.

‘If I get to 10,000 subscribers, I will post a sex tape of me for free on my OnlyFans!’

MUST READ: Love Island Star Suffers Horrific Burns After Falling Into Bonfire

Earlier this year Ray became a mother following the arrival of daughter Snow.  

Ray announced the arrival of Snow in January along with photos of the bundle of joy though never revealed the identity of her child’s father. 

‘Snow Ray 1/27/2026,’ she wrote, adding: ‘I can’t believe I made this little Maricle with my body. I’m so proud and so in love.’

Sahara also uploaded tearful video to her Stories showing herself cuddling up to little Snow while telling her fans: ‘She’s so beautiful’.

Her last Instagram post were photos of her baby girl. ‘My whole heart (heart emoji) baby Snow,’ she captioned the upload.  

Sahara has endured a difficult few years.

In May 2024 revealed she had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition that sees the immune system attack the nerves.

At the time, she told her followers that she had paralysed from her upper thighs down to her feet and that she was reliant on a wheelchair and walker to get around.

‘My whole life changed in an instant,’ Sahara wrote alongside a series of clips of her journey with the disease.

She explained that she was hit by a drunk driver travelling at 80m/h on April 8.

‘It basically sent my body into shock which sent my body into this crazy sickness,’ she revealed.

‘I got really really sick for like a week and a half to two weeks. During that time I barely ate any food because I couldn’t keep it down and my body got really weak,’ she continued.

Following her sickness she began to feel tingling and numbness in her feet which progressed to her legs.

The model was promptly rushed to the emergency room.

‘This has been really hard to deal with and I’ve been trying keep a good attitude and be hopeful that my feeling comes back,’ she told her social media followers.

She appeared to have seen a significant improvement in her health since then.

Sahara also made headlines in December 2021 when she announced she had begun a 30-day treatment program for drug and alcohol abuse at a facility in Miami. 

The model also sparked concern in June 2020 when she penned an emotional Instagram post claiming she’d been a victim of male predatory behaviour. 

WASHINGTON — Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is defending his sister-in-law after reports resurfaced that she was allegedly placed on a federal terrorism watchlist during the Obama administration more than a decade ago. El-Sayed said Mariam Jukaku “did nothing wrong.”

Jukaku, the sister of El-Sayed’s wife, was among more than a dozen plaintiffs in a 2016 lawsuit challenging their inclusion in the government’s Terrorism Screening Database.

“She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,” El-Sayed told Fox News on Saturday night.

Federal officials generally do not confirm or deny whether a person appears on a terrorism watchlist, nor do they typically explain the reasons for any listing. Jukaku’s case was brought with the assistance of attorneys affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

According to the lawsuit, Jukaku was trying to board a flight at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in 2012 when her boarding pass was marked “SSSS,” short for Secondary Security Screening Selection. The designation, the suit alleged, suggested she had been classified as a “known or suspected terrorist.”

“While passing through security, she was subjected to extensive searches, pat-downs and chemical testing,” the lawsuit stated.

Placement on a terrorism watchlist, by itself, does not establish that an individual has committed a crime.

The lawsuit did not identify the specific basis for Jukaku’s alleged inclusion in the Terrorism Screening Database. At the time, however, she was an editor at Al-Talib, a University of California, Los Angeles publication, according to the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Bruin.

Reports said federal authorities had allegedly “shut down” three major advertisers connected to the publication over suspected ties to terrorism. Jukaku was described as having publicly criticized those actions.

The Federalist also reported that Jukaku came to the attention of law enforcement in 2007, while attending graduate school at Syracuse University, after photographing federal facilities.

The 2016 class-action lawsuit sought financial damages from the federal government. The parties agreed to dismiss that case in 2017. A separate lawsuit seeking an injunction against the government initially prevailed, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling in 2021.

DON’T MISS: Sixth Beluga Rescued From Ontario’s Marineland Dies at SeaWorld

The Post said it could not reach Jukaku for comment. It contacted attorneys involved in the litigation as well as El-Sayed’s campaign.

El-Sayed also criticized the watchlist system, telling Fox News that people can be treated as “guilty until proven innocent” because of their names and what he described as infrastructure established by figures such as his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers.

The government has placed prominent officials on similar security lists. Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, for instance, was reportedly added to the Transportation Security Administration’s “Quiet Skies” program, allegedly because of patterns related to her international travel.

Opponents of terrorism watchlists argue that the programs provide limited due process and that many listed individuals do not know they have been flagged.

El-Sayed’s family connections to several Islamic organizations have also become a point of contention in his closely fought campaign against Rogers.

Tweets from 2012 showed that El-Sayed’s half-sister, University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, said the family supported the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood has radical offshoots, including Hamas, and is designated as a terrorist organization by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The United States does not currently apply that designation to the Brotherhood as a whole.

On Saturday, a voter named Tommy asked El-Sayed whether he would publicly reject the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Sure. Yeah, absolutely,” El-Sayed answered, before criticizing the premise of the question.

“You assume, Tommy, that because I am Muslim, that somehow, I would have allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,” he said. “That’s implicit in the question.”

The Michigan Senate hopeful invoked the skepticism that John F. Kennedy faced over his Catholic faith when he ran for president in 1960.

El-Sayed is set to debate Rogers on Wednesday and then stump with former President Barack Obama on Saturday.

Washington — The Supreme Court said Monday that it will examine whether a federal law dating back nearly 160 years can constitutionally prohibit people from distilling liquor in their homes.

The case, Department of Justice v. McNutt, is expected to be argued next year. The justices could issue a ruling by late June or early July.

For more than a century, Congress has restricted where distilled spirits may be produced as a way to combat tax evasion. The 1868 law at the center of the case says that a “person may not produce distilled spirits at home for personal use.” Anyone who uses or possesses a still or similar equipment in a “dwelling house,” shed, yard or other enclosed area can face criminal charges.

Those convicted may be fined and sentenced to as many as five years in prison. Their homes and the property inside them may also be seized by the government.

Congress adopted the restrictions after concluding that commercial distillers were widely evading federal taxes. In 1867, the tax on spirits stood at $2 a gallon—more than the product’s market value—and distillers reportedly found it cheaper to bribe revenue officers than pay the levy, according to a House report. Lawmakers estimated that “at least seven-eights” of all spirits were going untaxed.

The legislation that eventually barred home distilling lowered the tax rate and required the duty to be paid before spirits could leave a warehouse. It included no exemption for liquor produced solely for personal or family consumption.

The challenge to the longstanding prohibition was filed by the Hobby Distillers Association and one of its members, who wants to make spirits at home. They argued that the ban goes beyond Congress’ enumerated powers, including its authority to impose taxes. A federal district court agreed and declared the prohibition unconstitutional.

The 19th-century location rules, the district court concluded, “criminalize conduct of persons not subject to the tax” and do not “touch the product to be taxed.”

CHECK THIS OUT: Supreme Court Declines Appeal in Disputed Afghan Adoption Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit later upheld most of that ruling. It found that the restrictions were not “plainly adapted” to advancing the government’s taxing power because preventing people from making spirits at home also eliminates products that could otherwise be taxed.

Allowing the prohibition to stand, the 5th Circuit warned, could permit Congress to “criminalize nearly any at-home conduct only because it has the possibility of concealing taxable activity.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, calling the lower court’s decision to invalidate the ban “erroneous.”

In the government’s appeal, Sauer wrote that Congress targeted home distilling because operations based in a dwelling or an attached structure are easier to conceal and harder for officials to inspect, allowing producers to avoid the required tax.

The prospective distillers also asked the Supreme Court to resolve the dispute. Their attorneys maintain that the ban exceeds Congress’ authority under the Constitution’s Taxation Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause.

They argued in court filings that the government’s theory has no clear stopping point, warning that “there is no limit to the government’s claim of power to criminalize local conduct that might conceal taxable activity.”