Lynn Ban, star of Netflix reality show Bling Empire: New York, has died after having brain surgery due to a skiing accident.

The 51-year-old jewellery designer from Singapore died on Monday, her son Sebastian announced on social media – weeks after she underwent emergency brain surgery due to a skiing accident.

Last month, Ban, who lived in New York, shared with her Instagram followers that she “had a ski accident that would change my life” while on holiday in Aspen on Christmas Eve.

She revealed a CAT scan showed she had a severe head injury, including a brain bleed, meaning she needed an emergency craniotomy.

She said she woke up in hospital with her husband Jett Kain nearby, and hoped to recover this year.

In an update on her Instagram account on Wednesday, her son Sebastian wrote: “My mum passed away on Monday. I know she wanted to share her journey after her accident and brain surgery, so I thought she would appreciate one last post sharing the news to people who supported her.

“Many of you followed my mum but never got the chance to know her or meet her in person,” he added.

“I would like to take the chance to share who my mum really was. She was and always will be my best friend, the best mother to me, and someone who cared for all.

“She always had a smile on her face even when times were tough during her recovery process.

“She was a fighter until the end and is the strongest woman I know. She was the funniest and coolest mum I could ever ask for. She took care of me, my dad, and our entire family throughout her whole life.

“Although she may be gone now, I will do everything I can to make sure she is never forgotten and for her life to be celebrated as it deserves to be.

“As a final message to my mum, I would just like to say that I will miss you forever and to end in something she always told me ‘I love you more than life itself’ mum.”

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Ban starred in Bling Empire: New York, a spinoff of the popular Netflix reality series Bling Empire, which followed a group of wealthy Asian American socialites living in Los Angeles.

She also had a private jewellery label which catered to a host of celebrities, including thRihanna, Beyonce, Cardi B, Billie Eilish, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone.

Pop star Rihanna was among those who paid tribute on social media, writing: “2025 is rocking me at this point! This is too much!!! Lynn you will always be our fairy godmother!”

Designers Bea Akerlund and Phillip Bloch, Younger star Debi Mazar, and A Star Is Born actress Drena De Niro also paid tribute.

Ricky Gervais has paid tribute to his “beautiful” on-screen dog who featured in his TV show After Life.

The British comedian and actor said Vislor Antilly, also known as Anti, was a “beautiful soul” and they “hit it off straight away”.

Gervais said the German shepherd helped make After Life his “favourite filming experience of all time” and he was glad he told her “a hundred times a day that she was a very good girl”.

Antilly was Brandy the Dog in all 18 episodes of the Netflix comedy about local newspaper reporter Tony, played by Gervais, who is dealing with his wife’s death.

In the show, which ran for three seasons from 2019 to 2022, Tony is often seen walking Brandy, who stops him from taking his own life.

A statement on the Instagram account of Antilly the Wonder Hound read: “Vislor Antilly, After Life’s Brandy, has sadly passed away. We already miss her terribly. Sleep well xxx.”

She died peacefully at her home in Oxfordshire at the age of 13.

‘Such sad news’

Reacting to the death, Gervais said: “This is such sad news. Anti was a beautiful soul.”

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The canine also featured in Hollywood movies including Tom Cruise’s Edge Of Tomorrow, Michael Fassbender’s Trespass Against Us and George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky.

And she was in TV shows such as The Capture, Doc Martin, Britain’s Got More Talent, and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Her final stunt on camera was released in July last year in the Midsomer Murders episode The Debt Of Lies, where she played a retired police dog who detains the murderer before retiring.

After that, Antilly retired from film and television.

‘Animal actor and stunt performer’

Born in April 2011 in Herefordshire, at the home of West Bromwich-based Vislor Dog Training Centre, Antilly was raised by trainers Travis and Ashley Foster, who appeared in Sir Christopher Nolan’s Batman: The Dark Knight. She visited them on set when she was 10 weeks old.

The biography on her Instagram account read: “Vislor Antilly is an animal actor, stunt performer and charity advocate. She played Brandy in After Life by Ricky Gervais and has a very silly tummy.”

Dame Judi Dench has revealed she can no longer leave her house alone due to her deteriorating eyesight.

The 90-year-old actress has macular degeneration, a condition which leads to a gradual loss of vision.

In a new interview on Trinny Woodall’s Fearless podcast, Dame Judi says “somebody will always be with me” when she leaves the house.

“I have to [have someone] now because I can’t see,” she continues. “And I will walk into something or fall over.”

Reflecting on how she used to feel about attending events alone, Dame Judi said she was “no good at that at all”.

“And fortunately, I don’t have to be [alone] now because I pretend now to have no eyesight,” she laughs.

In July 2023, Dame Judi said she was determined to work “as much as I can” despite her health issues.

“I mean, I can’t see on a film set anymore,” she told The Mirror’s Notebook magazine. “And I can’t see to read. So I can’t see much. But, you know, you just deal with it. Get on.”

Dame Judi’s acting career began in the 1950s when she made her stage debut in a production of Hamlet at London’s Old Vic theatre.

In the decades since, she’s conquered the worlds of TV and film, winning an Oscar for her role in the 1998 movie Shakespeare In Love and, more recently, playing the head of MI6, M, alongside Daniel Craig’s James Bond.

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Dame Judi has also cemented herself as one of the UK’s best stage actresses, winning a string of Olivier awards for starring roles in plays including The Winter’s Tale and Macbeth.

Her most recent screen credit was in 2022, for a small role in Christmas film Spirited. She has continued to make public appearances and last October, she was a speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.