After Bizarre Posts, Founder of Skincare Brand Dead at 40

Brandon Truaxe was ousted at Deciem after 'outrageous' online behavior
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 22, 2019 3:02 AM CST
After Bizarre Posts, Founder of Skincare Brand Dead at 40
Brandon Truaxe.   (YouTube)

A genius with a troubled mind: Brandon Truaxe, founder of the skin care company Deciem, died on Sunday after months of bizarre online posts. The company did not disclose the cause of death, though police in Toronto said they had recovered the body of somebody who had fallen from the condo building that Truaxe gave as his address in his final Instagram post Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reports. The 40-year-old, whose company made the popular "The Ordinary" skin care line, was ousted as CEO in October because of increasingly strange online behavior, which included rambling personal messages on the company's account and allegations of enormous conspiracies involving celebrities and politicians, the BBC reports. He frequently tagged President Trump in his posts.

In a video posted in October of last year, Truaxe, who founded the company in Toronto in 2013, declared that he was shutting down all operations because "almost everyone at Deciem has been involved in major criminal activity which includes financial crimes and much other." Estee Lauder, the company's largest shareholder, had him ousted with an injunction, citing "outrageous, disturbing, and/or defamatory posts" on social media, the CBC reports. On Monday, Estee Lauder issued a statement calling him "a true genius" and saying his death was a "profound loss." Deciem closed all its stores Monday to honor the founder who "touched our hearts, inspired our minds, and made us believe that anything is possible." (More skin care stories.)

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