Carson Kressley reflects on former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst's 'devastating' death by suicide: 'She had the world at her feet'

• Carson Kressley reflected on Miss USA Cheslie Kryst's death by suicide on January 30.
• The two were friends and most recently worked together at the Miss Universe pageant in December 2021.

Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst died on January 30, in what CNN later confirmed was a suicide. Kryst's death happened while her friend and former cohost Carson Kressley was competing on "Celebrity Big Brother" and cut off from the outside world.

Speaking with Insider after his elimination from the show in February, Kressley reflected on Kryst's life and how he learned about her death after leaving the show.

"To get that news was really devastating because I loved working with her," Kressley said. The "Queer Eye" star had worked with Kryst several times since she was crowned, most recently in December at the Miss Universe pageant in Israel.

Kryst was a journalist and former lawyer. When she was crowned in 2019, Kryst was part of a historic moment when Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, and Miss America that year all went to women of color, Insider's Anneta Konstantinides and Mia Jankowicz previously reported.

As a lawyer, Kryst worked as a complex-litigation attorney who worked pro bono with clients serving long sentences for low-level drug offenses. She helped free one client who had been sentenced to life in prison and also spent years raising funds for the nonprofits Dress for Success and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, per Insider.

"What's so shocking is that she seemed like she was in a great place. She had the world at her feet," Kressley told Insider. "She had everything you think people would want, but yet, she was struggling with depression, and apparently struggling quite privately with it."

Shortly after her death, Kryst's mother April Simpkins wrote in an Instagram post that Kryst had high-functioning depression, and that she hid it from "everyone — including me, her closest confidant — until very shortly before her death."

The term, which is not an official medical diagnosis, describes depression among people who maintain, or even appear to thrive in, happy-looking, productive lives, experts previously told Insider.

Dr. Rebecca Semel, a New York-based licensed psychologist, previously told Insider's Kieran Press-Reynolds that just because someone presents a "shiny" persona on social media, that doesn't mean they aren't struggling.

"Especially for someone who was in pageants and everything, I feel like there's a type of person that they want to come across as," Dr. Semel said.

Kressley hopes that Kryst's death makes more people talk about mental illness.

"The only possible positive thing that can come about it is that it's going to spur conversations about mental illness, and mental health, and depression, and how we can help people struggling with depression, how we can get better access to mental healthcare when people need it, and how we can reach out and make sure that we're checking on people," Kressley told Insider.

"You can present like you're totally fine, and be totally not," he added.

Kryst's brother Chandler recently called her his 'hype man'

Kryst's brother Chandler is currently a contestant on NBC's Regency era-inspired dating show "The Courtship." He recently spoke to Extra about his sister.

Chandler said that as young kids, the siblings "were not the same" because Kryst was a "bookworm" and he was an active kid who was "always moving."

"As we grew up, we started to bond," he told Extra's Rachel Lindsay, explaining that they both ran track and Kryst coached him in the sport when he was in high school.

"Cheslie was my hype man," Chandler said when asked if Kryst gave him advice about being on "The Courtship." He said his sister always encouraged him to "just be yourself" because "if it works it works, if it doesn't it doesn't."