Vegan influencer Zhanna Samsonova’s chilling final Instagram post shared days before she ‘starved to death’

A vegan raw food influencer who lived on an ‘extreme’ diet of exotic fruit shared a chilling final post days before she reportedly died from starvation and exhaustion. 

Zhanna Samsonova, originally from Russia and known as Zhanna D’Art on social media, had been on the raw plant-based diet for ten years that consisted of fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies and juices. 

There were also periods when the 39-year-old would practice ‘dry fasting’ – where she would refuse to eat or drink anything for days.

Ms Samsonova, who hadn’t drunk water for more than six years and instead replaced it with fruit and vegetable juices, died on July 21 in Malaysia. 

The influencer, who had over 10,000 Instagram followers and had been travelling across Asia for the past 17 years, reportedly died from a cholera-like infection that was exacerbated by her extreme restrictive eating, her mother told Russian newspaper Vechernyaya Kazan.

In the days before her death, she shared a shocking post which read ‘life is meaningless.’  

Zhanna Samsonova, originally from Russia and known as Zhanna D’Art on social media,  shared a chilling final post days before she reportedly died from starvation and exhaustion

There were periods when Ms Samsonova would practice ‘dry fasting’ – where she would refuse to eat or drink anything for days

She had claimed that her ten years on a raw plant-based diet had meant she was ‘in perfect health’ and ‘never got the usual seasonal cold’ 

Posting the selfie on her Instagram page days before news of her death emerged, she wrote: ‘Life is meaningless but worth living provided you recognise it’s meaningless.’

The food blogger’s mother Vera Samsonova told local news outlets Ms Samsonova was supposed to fly home to Kazan on the day of her death. 

She did not approve of her daughter’s extreme diet and tried to convince her to introduce more balanced eating habits but she refused.

Ms Samsonova moved from veganism to a purely raw food diet consisting of vegetables and fruit, with the influencer sharing what she described as ‘healthy ‘ recipes on her Instagram profile.

The influencer, who appeared increasingly emaciated in her social media videos as time went on, would post footage of her eating her lunch which consisted of a whole melon and carrot juice at times. 

In another video, Ms Samsonova told her Instagram followers how she was having cherry tomatoes, an avocado and avocado juice for lunch. 

‘Despite the fact that I cook fancy raw dishes, I eat very simply myself. My food is simple, no oil, no salt, no dehydrated food and no protein,’ Ms Samsonova wrote in a post. ‘Today for lunch I have delicious avocado kefir, sweet cherry tomatoes and ripe avocado. Bon appetit.’

Her friends and family warned her against her extreme diet, but she refused to listen and it proved fatal after she reportedly died of an infection and exhaustion exacerbated by her raw food diet.

Ms Samsonova’s friend, who she met in Thailand, told Russian news outlet 116.ru: ‘It was scary to look at her, to be honest, her hands were like those of my 12-year-old sister, thin.’ 

Another friend said they saw Ms Samsonova a few months ago in Sri Lanka ‘looking exhausted’. 

‘They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified,’ they said. 

The 39-year-old’s friends have revealed they were ‘horrified’ at her emaciated appearance and begged her to get help from doctors – but she refused and carried on with her diet of raw plant-based foods

Zhanna Samsonova had over 10,000 Instagram followers

Her eating habits became worryingly restrictive in the last few months of her life, according to her friends. Ms Samsonova’s official cause of death has not yet been determined

In a post published on June 7, Ms Samsonova said she was excited for fruit season in Thailand, saying it was ‘time to gain weight’

‘I lived one floor above her and every day I feared finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn’t make it,’ the friend added.

Another friend said: ‘Ms Samsonova’s idle starvation was causing her to melt before our eyes, but she believed everything was fine.

‘Only her eyes, merry eyes, and gorgeous hair compensated for the dreadful sight of a body tortured by idiocy. Forgive me if it sounds harsh.’

One person commented on Ms Samsonova’s recent post and wrote: ‘This is just pure starvation, not a healthy raw vegan diet. I’m sorry to hear it ended badly. I wish I could have helped you out of your eating disorder.’

Ms Samsonova had been following a vegan diet for more than 15 years, starting out by allowing herself fish and dairy occasionally. 

However over the years, her restrictive eating became more and more extreme and she eventually only ate raw fruit and vegetables alongside juice. 

She had claimed that her ten years on a raw plant-based diet had meant she was ‘in perfect health’ and ‘never got the usual seasonal cold’.

But in 2021, Ms Samsonova travelled back to her native Russia for the first time in nine years and immediately fell ill with coronavirus. 

Ms Samsonova said she had ‘ignored’ all Covid precautions before becoming infected and bizarrely claimed she ‘cured’ herself of the virus by dry fasting – where she did not drink or eat anything for more than ten days.

She wrote on Instagram: ‘I was the category of people who wasn’t afraid to get infected with viruses and ignored all the precautions, because over the past ten years on raw plant-based diets I was in perfect health and I didn’t even get the usual seasonal cold.

‘And ironically… I still got sick [with Covid] and was in bed for ten days.’ 

Ms Samsonova then went on to bizarrely claim: ‘I began to cure myself with dry fasting, since for a long time I have been practicing this method, as I can cure all ailments.

‘The illness gradually began to recede, already the days of dry hunger and I was getting better and better every day… The most critical time is behind me I have overcome this disease despite my unconventional treatment which many condemn.’