Jesus Guerrero was not necessarily a household name, but he was a hairstylist to the stars, working with people like Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Jenner and Rosalía. So when his family announced on Sunday that he had died at 34, the tributes from his famous clients immediately began to flood social media.
His sister, Gris Guerrero, started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for funeral expenses, and while she did not share the cause of death, she called it “unexpected.” Then, on Tuesday, Ms. Guerrero shared an update on the GoFundMe: Ms. Jenner, a close friend and client, had offered to cover the funeral expenses.
The family turned off further donations, with Ms. Guerrero, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, saying in the update that the $96,000 raised would go toward getting Mr. Guerrero’s belongings back to his family home and other expenses associated with his death.
Ms. Jenner posted a tribute to Mr. Guerrero on Instagram in which she attached several photos and videos of them together.
“The pain of losing you is just unbearable and i don’t know how to move forward without you but I know great grief is born only of great love. and I loved you so much,” Ms. Jenner wrote. “I wish I could hug you again. I laid in your bed the way you used to lay in mine, talking for hours.”
Ms. Jenner did not attend the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, where her boyfriend, Timothée Chalamet, won best actor for his performance in “A Complete Unknown.” She did not publicly state a reason for her absence, but there was a great deal of speculation that the show being on the same day that Mr. Guerrero’s death was announced had played a role.
Mr. Guerrero was known for his feminine and glam red-carpet hairstyles and blowouts. He had a busy start to the year, working on several high-profile projects including Kali Uchis’s sleek waves at the Grammys. He was the hairstylist for Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s joint feature for Interview magazine, and he accompanied Ms. Jenner to Paris in January for the couture shows. On Feb. 19, Ms. Lopez tagged him in a post while she was in Dubai, seemingly to credit him for her blowout.
In an interview, Erinn Courtney, a hairstylist in Los Angeles who had met Mr. Guerrero almost a decade ago, shared memories of assisting him on jobs for Ms. Jenner and the singer Sabrina Claudio.
“Jesus was masterful and effortless,” Ms. Courtney, 37, said. “It was so easy for him to create masterpiece after masterpiece, and he did it with such grace and such humbleness. It didn’t matter what hair texture, what hairstyle — he could braid, he could do a blowout. He could do everything.”
She said that in the last message he sent her, Mr. Guerrero had recommended her to Ms. Jenner for her daughter’s braids, and that he had frequently demonstrated such acts of kindness.
“That was my baby,” Ms. Courtney said about Mr. Guerrero. “He was literally the sweetest person that you would ever, ever, ever meet. But like, don’t play with him because he definitely had a slick mouth.”
The news of Mr. Guerrero’s death came less than two weeks after Graham Nation, a hairstylist who worked with Demi Moore and Emma Chamberlain, died in Los Angeles on Feb. 14, at 39, according to Vogue.
Mr. Guerrero was born in Houston to an immigrant family. A friend and makeup artist, Ash K Holm, shared on Instagram that the two first met around 2012, when they both worked at the Galleria, a mall in Houston — Mr. Guerrero at Visible Changes, a hair salon, and Ms. Holm at MAC Cosmetics.
“We were young, hungry and proud of where we worked, constantly hyping each other up, knowing we were meant for more,” Ms. Holm said. They both moved to Los Angeles afterward, where their careers took off.
The posts about Mr. Guerrero from various celebrities were a mix of warm memories and shock at his untimely death.
“The truth is I’m still in shock that such a beautiful young life has come to an end,” Ms. Lopez wrote on Instagram. “It seems senseless and unfair.”
The actress Shay Mitchell shared a series of candid videos with Mr. Guerrero, including one in which she and Mr. Guerrero were dancing to Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Hot Girl Summer,” and another of the two goofing off on a red carpet.
“I’ve spent the last few days endlessly staring at photos, watching videos and reading old texts,” Ms. Mitchell said. “A thousand moments I had just taken for granted because I just assumed there’d be a thousand more. What a privilege it was to know and love you, Jesus.”
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