Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford who as a teenager forged a promising modeling career of his own and later battled publicly with substance abuse and his mental health, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 27.

Gerber died at a rehab facility, according to records from the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office. A cause of death was not listed, and a spokesperson for the family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As a teenager, Gerber began modeling and caught the public eye as a child of Crawford, one of the most recognized American supermodels, and Rande Gerber, a businessperson.

By age 17, Presley Gerber had appeared in campaigns for brands such as Calvin Klein and walked in shows for fashion houses including Dolce & Gabbana and Moschino. According to DNA Models, his management agency, he later became the face of Celine’s Eau de Californie fragrance.

Alongside his younger sister Kaia Gerber, a model and actor, Gerber often joined his family on the red carpet and in ad campaigns.

The luxury wristwatch brand Omega featured the four family members as brand ambassadors in 2017. The following year, Gerber appeared in a Super Bowl ad for Pepsi that was narrated by Jimmy Fallon and nodded at his mother’s own blockbuster Super Bowl spot for the same brand from 1992.

According to his parents, the inspiration for Presley’s name came from a dinner they attended with David Foster, the Hollywood music producer who was then married to Linda Thompson, the ex-girlfriend of Elvis Presley.

Gerber and his sister attended high school in Southern California for a few hours a day and completed the rest of their schooling online while balancing their modeling careers, they previously said.

Before being signed at age 15 by IMG Models, a talent agency, Gerber was an avid athlete who devoted significant time — sometimes as many as 10 hours a day during middle school, he said — to water sports, including swimming, surfing and water polo.

“I can tell you right now, the strongest addiction I ever had was surfing and being in the ocean,” he once remarked.

Even as he pursued a modeling career, however, Gerber struggled with mental health issues and substance abuse, a battle he waged for over a decade, according to interviews he gave and the accounts of family members.

On his Instagram account, he spoke regularly of experiencing bouts of depression and described his time at rehabilitation centers in a series he called “Mental Health Mondays.” In a post last year, Gerber recalled how challenging he had found it as a teenager to adapt to the burdens of life as a working model, including the travel commitments and attention.

“I remember within the first week of signing, I’m like in New York, people are taking pictures of my shirt off. My whole life changed within a month. It was a very profound experience, because I had to grow up quickly,” he said in a podcast interview in 2023. In the same interview, he said he hoped to obtain a real estate license as he moved away from modeling.

Reflecting on his modeling career last year, Gerber recalled his mental health declining as he grew older and spent less time participating in outdoor sports. “The less activity that was in my life, especially for me in the ocean, the more medication I found having to be integrated into my life,” he said.

In March, Gerber shared an Instagram post, apparently from Mexico, detailing his plans to receive a dose of ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychoactive drug that some researchers hope could be used as a treatment for addiction, PTSD and brain injuries. The mind-altering drug is illegal in the United States but is accessible abroad, including in Mexico.

His father wrote in a comment on that post: “I’m so proud of you and your courage.” His mother called him “a warrior.”

Last month, his sister told Vogue that she was proud of him for openly discussing his struggles.

“When something like that happens in a family, it kind of levels everyone,” she said. “There’s only so much you can hide from the world. And trying to put a lid on something just makes the person feel like you’re ashamed of them.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Leo Sands/Michael Tyrone Delaney
c. 2026 The New York Times Company