For much of Presley Gerber’s early life, other people seemed to know exactly who he was supposed to be.
He was Cindy Crawford’s only son. Rande Gerber’s boy. Kaia Gerber’s older brother. The striking blond teenager who inherited the kind of looks that made a modeling career seem almost inevitable.
By 16, he was already walking major runways. Before long, he was working with names including Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger.
But behind the photographs, Presley would later reveal that another story was unfolding — one involving depression, panic attacks, addiction, treatment and the difficult work of figuring out how to keep moving forward.
In 2023, at 23, he explained what had begun motivating him to get up each morning.
It wasn’t another modeling campaign.
It wasn’t fame.
It was the possibility that the mistakes and struggles he’d endured might spare somebody else from experiencing the same pain.
“That’s what’s getting me out of bed these days,” Presley said, explaining that he hoped other people could learn from what he had gone through. (E! Online)
Three years later, on September 20, 2026, Presley died at a rehabilitation facility. He was only 27. His official cause of death has not yet been determined. (Reuters)
He grew up in a world almost nobody experiences
Presley Walker Gerber was born July 2, 1999.
His mother was already a global superstar.
Cindy Crawford had become one of the defining faces of the supermodel era, appearing on hundreds of magazine covers and turning her name into a brand recognizable far beyond fashion.
Presley’s father, Rande Gerber, built his own successful career in hospitality and business.
Then there was Kaia, born two years after Presley, who would eventually follow both her mother and brother into modeling.
Yet Presley’s childhood also contained the ordinary things that rarely make celebrity headlines.
He grew up in Malibu. He loved surfing, skateboarding and photography — interests that remained important to him as an adult. (AP News)
For years, photographs captured a smiling blond boy beside his famous mother.
Nobody looking at those pictures could have known what his adulthood would eventually contain.
At first, Presley followed the family path into fashion
Modeling arrived early.
Presley made his runway debut for Moschino at 16 and subsequently worked with some of fashion’s most recognizable brands. He appeared in campaigns and walked shows, eventually even appearing alongside Cindy in a 2018 Pepsi Super Bowl commercial. (Reuters)
He seemed perfectly suited to the industry.
Tall.
Photogenic.
Already comfortable around cameras.
And carrying one of fashion’s most famous family names.
But as Presley moved into his 20s, his public image changed.
The clean-cut blond teenager accumulated tattoos across his body. Eventually the word “MISUNDERSTOOD” appeared beneath his eye.
People debated his appearance.
Presley was dealing with things far more complicated than a tattoo.
At 23, he finally began explaining what had been happening
In 2023, Presley sat down for an interview on the Studio 22 podcast.
It became one of the clearest windows into his private struggles.
He spoke openly about depression and mental health, describing caring for his mental well-being as a “24/7 job.” (ITVX)
He had spent considerable time in therapy.
He had tried different approaches.
Exercise, yoga, meditation and music had all become outlets.
But something else had begun taking shape.
Presley realized that his own experiences might have value to another person.
Not because he had discovered a perfect solution.
Because he’d made mistakes.
He wanted somebody else to learn from what he had survived
Presley’s reasoning was remarkably straightforward.
He had experienced things he wished he hadn’t.
He had learned lessons the difficult way.
Perhaps somebody else didn’t have to.
He said he hoped that, whether he helped one person or a hundred, he could help somebody avoid reaching the same place he’d once found himself in. (The National)
Then he explained what that purpose was doing for him personally.
It was giving him a reason to get up.
Presley said the hope that other people could learn from his mistakes was “what’s getting me out of bed these days.” (E! Online)
Those words were spoken more than three years before his death.
And Presley didn’t leave them as merely an idea.
He had a plan: Mental Health Mondays
During that same period, Presley began developing a project he called Mental Health Mondays.
The concept was simple.
He wanted to use social media to have conversations about mental health that people often avoided.
Presley planned to bring in some of the people who had helped him personally, including a trainer who had used exercise to help him during a depressive period. He wanted to discuss treatments, habits and the “green flags” and “red flags” people might encounter while looking for support. (E! Online)
The model who had spent years being photographed because of his appearance was beginning to use his platform for something completely different.
And eventually, Mental Health Mondays became real.
Presley began posting videos in which he talked about the tools, routines and experiences that had shaped his own journey. (E! Online)
Movement became one of his most important tools
One recurring theme was surprisingly simple.
Move.
Presley spoke about exercise, getting outdoors and changing his environment when his mental state began slipping.
In one Mental Health Mondays video, he explained how dramatically his surroundings could affect his state of mind.
Swimming in a lake, using a sauna or cold plunge, working out and simply getting outside were among the things he found useful personally.
He also talked about struggling with energy in the morning and realizing that sometimes expending energy through movement actually helped him feel more energetic. (Dailymotion)
For Presley, starting the morning with exercise could alter the direction of the entire day.
That became part of his philosophy.
Not a universal prescription for everybody.
A collection of tools that helped him.
He wasn’t pretending he had recovered from everything
That may be one of the most important parts of Presley’s Mental Health Mondays project.
He wasn’t speaking from some distant finish line.
He was still struggling.
He was still learning.
And sometimes he had to disappear from the very project he’d created.
In November 2025, Presley returned to Instagram after taking a break.
He explained that he had needed time away to focus on his own mental health.
But he promised to return “stronger, clearer, more intentional than ever.” (Page Six)
Then he explained why Mental Health Mondays still mattered so much to him.
Its purpose, he said, was to start genuine conversations about things people normally hide.
He had seen those conversations spread.
And he was proud.
By then, his struggles had affected his entire family
Presley’s experiences weren’t happening in isolation.
Kaia Gerber later spoke about how profoundly her brother’s addiction affected their family.
She also praised him for something unusual within a family that had historically valued privacy:
Presley was willing to be vulnerable.
He talked.
He shared.
He exposed parts of his life that would have been much easier to hide.
And Cindy and Rande continued supporting their son as he tried different paths toward recovery.
In early 2026, Presley confronted another frightening chapter
Presley’s search eventually led him to an ibogaine treatment program in Mexico.
Ibogaine is a psychoactive substance sometimes pursued experimentally in connection with substance-use disorders; it is not approved for medical use in the United States.
Presley later described himself as “absolutely terrified” before the experience.
Yet he went through with it.
Afterward, he wrote about confronting things he’d spent years running from and beginning to feel that he was finding his way back to himself. (People.com)
His family responded publicly.
Cindy called him a warrior.
Rande expressed pride in his courage.
Kaia said she was incredibly proud of her brother. (The National)
For a moment, the posts felt hopeful.
Then Presley appeared beside his parents for a different reason
On June 11, 2026, Presley attended the We Are ENOUGH x Aviator Nation launch event in Malibu.
Cindy and Rande were beside him.
But Presley wasn’t there simply as the supermodel’s son.
He was there to discuss mental health.
During what would become his final major public appearance, Presley talked about honesty, self-care, movement and nature.
He described a breakthrough he’d experienced at 23 and discussed learning to live more authentically. (EW.com)
Think about where that left him compared with the young man speaking on the podcast three years earlier.
Back then, he had an idea.
He wanted his mistakes to help somebody else.
That hope was getting him out of bed.
Now he was sitting on a stage talking openly about those experiences.
He had actually followed through.
His final Instagram chapter still contained hope
Presley’s final social-media presence wasn’t built entirely around darkness.
One of his last posts showed him outdoors, enjoying nature — something that had repeatedly become part of the routines he said helped him mentally. (Page Six)
That matters because hindsight can distort a person’s final photographs.
Once somebody dies young, every expression suddenly gets examined for evidence of what was coming.
But photographs can’t tell us that.
And Presley’s public statements weren’t a countdown toward his death.
They documented somebody actively trying to live differently.
On September 20, Presley died at 27
Presley died Sunday morning at a rehabilitation facility in Santa Monica.
Police subsequently said detectives were investigating the death as a suspected overdose, while emphasizing there was no indication of foul play. (E! Online)
But a suspected overdose is not the same as a confirmed cause of death.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner is responsible for making that determination, and further testing was pending. (Reuters)
His family asked for privacy.
Cindy and Rande had lost their only son.
Kaia had lost her older brother.
The plan that got him “out of bed” didn’t disappear
There is an especially painful irony in Presley’s 2023 interview now.
He spoke about helping others as something that gave him motivation.
He hoped he’d already made some of the mistakes so that somebody listening wouldn’t have to repeat them.
And then he did something important:
He actually built the project.
Mental Health Mondays became more than a plan.
For roughly two years, Presley used the series to discuss habits, medications, recovery, setbacks and the things he’d learned about caring for his mental health. (E! Online)
In November 2025, after temporarily stepping away, he wrote that he’d seen how many people the message had reached and helped. (E! Online)
That was something tangible.
His goal was never to convince people that life was easy
Presley understood firsthand that it wasn’t.
His message was closer to this:
Talk about it.
Move.
Find healthy outlets.
Be honest.
Pay attention to your environment.
And don’t assume that struggling means you have nothing useful to offer another person.
In his final public appearance, he was still talking about those ideas. (EW.com)
There was no neat ending to Presley’s recovery story.
Real life rarely provides one.
He wanted to help one person — and people were listening
Perhaps the line that best captures Presley’s later years came from that 2023 conversation.
He said that whether he helped one person or a hundred, that would be enough. (The National)
He couldn’t know then how his own story would end.
He couldn’t know that he would die at only 27.
But he did know what he wanted to do with the difficult things he’d already survived.
He wanted them to mean something beyond himself.
For a young man who once said that hope was what got him out of bed, creating Mental Health Mondays and eventually speaking publicly about his experiences meant that he fulfilled at least part of that plan.
Presley didn’t get the long future his family hoped he would have.
But he did get the chance to turn some of his hardest experiences into conversations that reached other people — exactly what he had said he wanted to do. (People.com)
For more on Presley Gerber’s struggles, you can read about how he was “absolutely terrified” during addiction treatment. Also, you might be interested in the story of a Navy Veteran, his wife, and their daughter found dead and Lionel Richie’s recent hospital stay.
