UPPER MARLBORO, MARYLAND: Life coach, author and inspirational speaker Iyanla Vanzant, aka Rhonda Harris, took to Instagram to announce the sudden death of her youngest daughter, Nisa, on Sunday, July 30. "It is with great sorrow that we announce the transition of Nisa Vanzant the youngest daughter of our Beloved Iyanla Vanzant we are asking for your prayers. Please respect the privacy of her and her family at this time. Thank you," Vanzant wrote in a heartbreaking post.
No details surrounding the cause of Nisa's untimely demise was made available to the public, at the time of writing. The tragic news comes nearly 20 years after Vanzant's 30-year-old daughter, Gemmia, died from a rare form of colon cancer on Christmas Day 2003. Nisa was Vanzant's third child, born after daughter Gemmia and eldest son Damon. Vanzant was married twice in her life, to Charles Vanzant and Adeyemi Bandele, respectively.
What is known about Iyanla Vanzant's husband?
Vanzant has been married twice in her lifetime. She tied the knot with her first husband Charles in 1973 but the latter reportedly turned out to be physically abusive. Vanzant and Charles were married for nearly seven years before she decided to escape the life of abuse and ran away from her husband with her three children. During an episode of her show 'Iyanla: Fix My Life,' the life coach opened up about leaving the abusive household.
"After I got hit in my head with a bed slat, I woke up at three o'clock in the morning and something said to me, 'If you don't leave here now, he's going to kill you.' And I creeped out of the bed and I got a bag of clothes for each of my kids and one for me. And I left," Vanzant recalled. "I had nowhere to go, I had no money to get there — I didn't even care. But I had to be willing to lose everything to gain it all," she added at the time.
Vanzant walked down the aisle for the second time in 1997 when she married Adeyemi, a lecturer and businessman. However, the marriage ended in 2007 after the couple decided to part ways and filed for divorce.
'Give yourself permission to have the initial shock'
While Vanzant is yet to share the details surrounding the loss of her youngest daughter, Nisa, she previously opened up about dealing with pain or any form of personal tragedy while speaking to MSNBC in 2022. "Give yourself permission to have the initial shock and horrification of whatever the change is — the loss of a job, a divorce, even a health crisis... I think what happens is we try to, you know. Push through it. No, no, no! Stay there for a couple of hours, even a day or so, and then I promise you it is one step at a time," she said.
"Sometimes you'll fall over, and sometimes you'll stumble ahead, and sometimes you can barely get up. It's one step at a time, and you may not know where that step is going to lead you…Your daily spiritual practice, that is your ticket, whatever you're going into, whatever you're coming out of — your daily spiritual practice: centering, grounding, breathing, listening, trusting. One step at a time. That's the only way you can do it, because you cannot rush through it," Vanzant explained at the time.
