On May 9, 2023, At the age of 47, Heather Armstrong, the well-known American mommy blogger whose blog Dooce details her battles with parenting, mental illness, and alcoholism, committed suicide. Her boyfriend, former US democratic senate candidate Pete Ashdown, says that he discovered her on Tuesday evening at their Utah home.
Prior to founding Dooce in the early 2000s, Heather had previously worked as a web designer and graphic artist. She built the blog site and turned it into a successful career that drew millions of readers and brought in thousands of dollars every month from paid advertisements. Her 2009 memoir It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita is one of three books she has written as well.
In addition to Pete, she is survived by the two children she had with her ex-husband Jon Armstrong: son Marlo Iris and daughter Leta Elise.
Heather Armstrong Was Raised In Memphis, Tennessee
Heather Armstrong (née Hamilton) was born on July 19, 1975. She grew up as a Mormon (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in Memphis, Tennessee.
After high school, she majored in English at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. She moved to Los Angeles after graduating from university in 1997 and began working as a web developer.
She later returned to Salt Lake City and found work as a consultant and web designer.
Heather launched dooce.com in 2001 and utilized the site to discuss work, musings, and her life after quitting the Mormon faith. Unfortunately, she was fired in 2002 for satirizing her colleagues on her personal blog using aliases
Despite being fired, she continued to blog, and her site went viral. As previously stated, she began generating money from the site through paid adverts in 2004.
According to various statistics, the site attracted over 8.5 million readers each month and made approximately $40,000 in advertising revenue in 2009. As a result, it turned into a significant source of income for her and her family.
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She Was Once Married To Jon Armstrong
Heather Armstrong was previously married to Jon Amstrong, a web designer. During the time she was laid off, she met him through a mutual friend.
In 2004, she and Jon welcomed their first child, Leta Elise, into the world. She is 20 years old. Her son Marlo Iris was born five years later in 2009, and he is now 15 years old.
Heather and Jon divorced in 2012. The news of the divorce and separation surprised many people because the mommy blogger had never written about her marital difficulties, but she had also written positively about her ex-husband.
Subsequently, Heather revealed that they have been in counseling for years, and her ex-husband expected her to just move on from the negative comments she had been getting from her site.
After the divorce, she started dating Pete Ashdown, a former US Senate Democratic candidate in Utah.
Heather Armstrong Allegedly Died From Suicide
Heather Armstrong’s partner, Pete Ashdown found her dead on Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in their Salt Lake City home. At the moment, it is unclear how she actually died, but it was alleged she committed suicide.
During her lifetime, she struggled with parenting, mental health, and alcoholism, as stated earlier. The mommy blogger suffered postpartum depression after the birth of her eldest child, Leta in 2004. Her depression became worst in 2015 when she had to take a break from blogging before resuming in 2017.
In the latter days of her life, she became more open with her readers sharing her struggle with alcoholism.
