Elly Mayday

Mayday died in Vancouver on March 1, 2019, aged 30. Her disease had progressed, especially during the last months, and the doctors were unable to help any more. A high school friend who flew in to see her said that Mayday had accepted death. At the time of her death, Mayday's Facebook page had 500,000 followers.

In 2018, she wrote an article for Flare magazine about her hysterectomy making her unable to have children. It was the first of her major operations. She had planned on eventually having five children, and when she was diagnosed consulted a fertility specialist about collecting her eggs, but was told that the drugs used would increase the progression of her cancer, so she decided against it. "I need to take care of the young girls that need me or need this voice. That's my way of parenting for now," she told the CBC.

Mayday kept modeling in New York until 2017, when her disease recurred, and she returned to Canada. In 2017, Mayday was the face of Canadian plus-size clothing store Addition Elle's campaign to raise money for Ovarian Cancer Canada. She posted about the difficult parts of her treatments on Instagram, including pictures of her exhausted, and videos of her talking about vomiting and undergoing chemotherapy.

In July 2014, Mayday was told she was cancer free. She flew to Australia to front a campaign for the Australian Women's Weekly, and was one of six models featured in plus-size lingerie company Lane Bryant's #ImNoAngel campaign in April 2015, displaying women with model-atypical body types. Her unretouched surgery scars were visible in the photographs. In June 2015, Mayday's cancer returned, and she had a fifth surgery to remove another tumor. She posted pictures from this surgery to Instagram as well, referring to her scars as "beauty marks" but she stopped referring to herself as cancer free.

Mayday's continued attempts at modeling succeeded, and by early 2013 she became a model for Forever Yours, a Vancouver all-sizes lingerie company. Her symptoms increased in the summer of 2013, and she returned to her doctors saying that she would refuse to work until she was diagnosed. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, specifically stage III low-grade serous carcinoma, a rare form of cancer normally seen in older women. She was 25 years old.

Ashley Shandrel Luther (April 15, 1988 – March 1, 2019), better known as Elly Mayday, was a Canadian plus-size model and advocate for women's health. She was known for battling ovarian cancer throughout her modeling career, and was often photographed with surgical scars and a bald head from chemotherapy.

Mayday was born Ashley Shandrel Luther on April 15, 1988, and grew up on a farm near Aylesbury, Saskatchewan (population 50). She grew up with three brothers; her family grew crops, raised cattle, horses, pigs and chickens, and ran a local restaurant. Her mother was an artist. Mayday went to boarding school at age 13, then studied gender studies and psychology at university, and afterwards took a room with her brother in Vancouver.