Fashion designer Kate Spade left behind a tragic note telling her teenage daughter not to blame herself for her suicide.
Spade, 55, was found hanged at her Park Avenue home on Tuesday morning.
Next to her body, was a heartbreaking suicide note addressed to her 13-year-old daughter Frances ‘Bea’ Beatrix, her only child, telling her she’d always loved her and not to feel guilty over her mother’s death.
The note read, according to TMZ: ‘Bea – I have always loved you. This is not your fault. Ask Daddy!’
Fashion designer Kate Spade (pictured with her husband Andy) left behind a tragic note telling her teenage daughter not to blame herself for her suicide
Kate’s husband was at the apartment when his wife took her own life according to police.
The housekeeper who discovered Spade’s body, who was found with a red scarf round her neck, reportedly ran downstairs to inform the building’s superintendent who rushed back to the apartment, cut the scarf and attempted CPR.
Spade was declared dead at the scene. It’s not clear how long she had been dead. The medical examiner will perform an autopsy.
In a statement, Spade’s family reportedly said they were ‘devastated by today’s tragedy.’
‘We loved Kate dearly and will miss her terribly,’ they said. ‘We would ask that our privacy be respected as we grieve during this very difficult time.’
American icon: Kate Spade was found dead at the age of 55 in her Park Avenue apartment on Tuesday (Spade above in 2004)
Remarks: ‘Kate has not been affiliated with the brand for more than a decade, she and her husband and creative partner, Andy, were the founders of our beloved brand. Kate will be dearly missed. Our thoughts are with Andy and the entire Spade family at this time,’ said executives for the fashion line Kate Spade
A source close to the family described the moment Andy Spade picked up their daughter from school
‘Everyone was crying,’ a source told People.
The NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said that police are not treating Spade’s death as suspicious.
‘At this point, there was a note left. The contents of that note, as well as the physical state of the apartment and the comments of the witness, lend to the credibility that it is an apparent suicide,’ he said.
Relatives say her death comes after a long battle with mental illness. Her sister Reta Saffo told the DailyMail.com that she believes Spade had bipolar disorder which was made worse by her celebrity status after her brand took off.
However, a source told People that ‘Kate and Andy were having relationship problems’ and that he had been shopping for a new one or two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, although other sources say they were working closely together on her new brand Frances Valentine, a line of luxury handbags and shoes.
Trio: By 2006, the company was valued at $125 million, and Kate left for good the following year after Neiman sold Kate Spade & Co to Liz Claiborne that same year (Kate with Andy and David Spade in 2001)
Apartment: The designer left a note telling her daughter it was not her fault before taking her own life by hanging and allegedly told the girl to ‘ask daddy’ reports TMZ (Spade’s apartment above)
Tragedy: The designer left a note before taking her own life by hanging and was discovered ‘unconscious and unresponsive’ by her housekeeper just after 10am (Spade is taken from her home in a body bag)
Kate and Andy married in 1994, one year after launching Kate Spade New York together.
Three years in the couple was able to open their first store, and for the next decade continue to grow the company. Kate had launched international and home lines by 2004, having by that point sold off most of her company.
Neiman Marcus purchased 56 percent of the company in 1999 and the remaining 44 percent by 2006, at which time Kate left the business to raise her daughter.
She told People at the time that she wanted to focus on her family.
‘When the two of us sold the company with our other two partners to Neiman Marcus, it was kind of a time for us to take a break. So we sold Kate Spade and I personally, I don’t know about Andy, I took off a good nine years raising my daughter and absolutely adored every moment of it.
‘And then I realized she was becoming 12 and didn’t want me around so much, so I thought I would get back into the business.’
In a 2016 interview with Wall Street Journal, Kate spoke about how even through she had returned to the world of fashion her daughter was still her priority.
‘I kind of thought taking that time off was unbelievably amazing,’ she said of her decade-long absence .
‘I thought it was, like, a gift. I really did.’
Once back at work, it was including her only child that made work a delight for Kate, and she described her excitement at getting to go to the studio with Frances on the weekends.
Kate is the third major designer to take her life in the past decade, with L’Wren Scott committing suicide in 2014 and Alexander McQueen also ending his life in 2010.