Breast Cancer Takes the Life of Survivor: Palau’s Jenn Lyon

Reality News Online is saddened to report that Jenn Lyon, fourth-place finisher on Survivor: Palau, died Tuesday at the age of 37 after a long battle with cancer.

Lyon’s fight with breast cancer began in the summer of 2004, when she felt something abnormal in her right breast. However, she told People later that she “let it go” thinking it was related to her implants. She was eventually diagnosed with cancer two months after being on Survivor in 2005. She had both breasts and almost 30 lymph nodes removed to fight the disease. But eventually, she succumbed.

Even as she was fighting her own breast cancer, Lyon was encouraging others to join in that fight against the disease. Her official web page at http://jennlyon.com (which, as of this publication, has not been updated with news of her death) notes that she has “been deeply involved as of late in women's breast cancer awareness issues, and her work has gotten national notice,” including having appeared on a Lifetime Network cancer awareness special with Melissa Etheridge and having been featured in an US Weekly magazine article.

Former Survivor: Vanuatu and Micronesia contestant Eliza Orlins told TV Guide Online, “The whole time she maintained a positive attitude. She was truly an amazing girl and I was lucky to know her. Even just last week when I saw her at the ten-year reunion, we were all laughing and she had her same glowing smile on her face." Orlins added, both to TV Guide Online and in a separate Twitter post, “Jenn brought more good to this world in her almost 38 years than most will in a lifetime."

Orlins was not the only former contestant to use Twitter to express their feelings. Among others, former Survivor winner Jenna Morasca, who lost her own mother to breast cancer and has most recently been supporting boyfriend (and also former winner) Ethan Zohn in his own cancer battle, posted, “Why must God be so cruel… see you on the other side Jenn you are ‘officially’ an angel now. I will carry your light w me always.”

Lyon made it to the final four in Survivor: Palau but was sent out of the game when there was a tie vote between her and Ian – and Ian won the fire-making challenge (you can read my recap of her finale appearance here).

Perhaps surprisingly, given the number of Survivor contestants over the past ten years, Lyon is the first to pass away. The Reality News Online family extends its condolences to all of Lyon’s family and friends.

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