R.I.P. Matthew “Jett” Schaefer

Paraphrased from his personal site:
The late Gianni Versace discovered Matt “Jett” Schaefer in 1996 while vacationing in South Beach, Miami. Soon after, Matt appeared in a photo shoot alongside Cindy Crawford and soon found himself appearing in runway shows and print campaigns for Armani, Versace, Calvin Klein, and Valentino. He appeared in several minor acting roles throughout his life, but his second love was flying. His father, an international pilot, interested him in flying and he earned his Commercial Pilot’s lisence and was a Certified Flight Instructor who flew small jets, seaplanes, and acrobatic stunt planes.
On January 7, 2009, Matt died of complications related to cancer. A close friend wrote about his final days on his memorial site:

In November, Jett was bruising easily when he was training so his Mother asked him to go get tested because she was concerned about his bruising and thought something was wrong with his blood. Jett went to get tested and found out that the cancer had come back, but this time it was spread throughout 58% of his bone marrow…

Jett went through two consecutive bull-dozer chemo treatments that would have killed the average person. The chemo treatments were 1 week each with only a week off in between. Jett’s Mother told me that Jett was extremely proud to say to his Mother that he beat cancer a second time, which is exactly what he did. The two chemo sessions wiped out the cancer but left him with zero immune system defenses, and then he fell victim to a rare fungal infection in his sinuses that spread though his head and put pressure on his skull to the point where his nerves were being pinched.

The fungus is similar to a black tar and extremely difficult to eradicate through antibiotics alone, but also needs to be physically scraped in addition to the drugs. Given the fact that Jett had almost zero white blood cells from the chemo, there was a very slim chance he would pull through. His Doctor said that the fungal infection was so rare that he had only seen it 6 times in his career. His Doctor further went on to comment that even a healthy person would have a slim to none chance of surviving this type of infection.

In a sad turn of irony, the handsome model had just appeared on the February cover of Maximum Fitness for his article entitled, How I Cheated Death. In it, he said “I want to know that when I am gone, people will have learned and taken something from me to make their lives better,” he says. “I want to help as many people as I can while maximizing the most I can get from life.”
We think it’s a shame such a beautiful and obviously talented man should pass before his prime. Yes, we ogle all sorts of hot guys here at QC, but we also realize they’re actual people acting out our fantasies and providing (even in some small degree) happiness and beauty in our lives. Matt’s family and loved ones are in our thoughts in this time of loss.
Via Sticky.