Beau Jessup, daughter of actress Lisa Maxwell, has died unexpectedly at the age of 27.
Ms Jessup passed away while studying at Columbia Journalism School in New York City, where she was completing her graduate studies and preparing to graduate in May.
She was the only child of actress Lisa Maxwell, known for her role as DI Samantha Nixon on The Bill, and her husband Paul Jessup.
In a statement shared on Monday, Columbia Journalism School said: "Columbia Journalism School mourns the loss of Beau Jessup, a student in our M.S. program.
"We extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, classmates and all who knew and loved her."
No cause of death has been made public.
Ms Maxwell and Mr Jessup welcomed Beau in 1999 and married in 2014 after a leap day proposal.
The 27-year-old had recently been interviewed by Columbia News, where she spoke about her early business ventures and her interest in storytelling.
Ms Jessup said: "I’ve never really thought of those projects as entrepreneurial ventures.
"I was less interested in starting businesses than in finding ways to connect with people."
At just 16, she launched Specialname, a business that generated English names for Chinese children.
The service was used by more than 250,000 people and was inspired by her time in China and a request from a mother seeking an English name for her baby.
She later pursued studies at the London School of Economics and Writing for Performance at Cambridge University.
Reflecting on her mother's career and its influence on her, Ms Jessup said: "As the daughter of a television actress, I grew up with an unusual awareness of the distance between people’s lives and the stories told about them.
"I saw how journalism could illuminate someone’s experiences, but also how those experiences could be distorted, simplified, or transformed into a public narrative over which the subject had very little control.
"I was curious, from quite a young age, about who gets to tell people’s stories, and what happens when those stories enter the public domain."
When she began her studies in Manhattan in September, Ms Maxwell posted on X: "congratulations guys! Especially my daughter BeauJessup over in NYC making us all super proud."
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