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The close friend of Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton’s fiancée gushed over the bride-to-be in her final Instagram post before she unexpectedly died during a lavish bachelorette getaway in St. Barts.
Makenzi Kern celebrated Jade Jones, the future wife of the two-time NBA All-Star, in a heartbreaking Instagram post before she suddenly died on June 8 from undisclosed health complications during the Caribbean getaway.
“We sure know how to celebrate jade jones!” Kern wrote in the caption, posing in a white crop top and tan pants in front of a Nashville, Tennessee bar.
Two other photos included showed her beaming alongside Jones and another pal.
The images, shared on Feb. 2, 2024, were the last ones Kern posted on Instagram before her death over two years later.
The Iowa native died just two days after marking her 26th birthday on Jones’ swanky bachelorette trip.
Kern – whose family does not believe foul play, drugs or alcohol contributed to her death – appeared smiley and carefree in photos taken in the first several days of the pre-wedding retreat.
Instagram snaps shared by Jones and her 13-woman bridal crew showed Kern grinning with her arms outstretched in a blue two-piece outfit, surrounded by friends in matching looks, with the bride-to-be standing in the center in white.
The sun-kissed bunch later posed by the pool, on a boat, and along the oceanfront as they toasted to “Hail Ever After” – a play on Haliburton’s name – before the trip took a tragic turn.
The circumstances surrounding Kern’s death remain unclear.
Her devastated family said that she died while “surrounded by her closest friends on a once in a lifetime trip to St. Barthelemy Island,” according to an online obituary.
“She loved boating with her dad, water skiing, and got to try out a seabob for the first time in St Barths,” Kern’s grief-stricken loved ones wrote, adding that she “lived life to the fullest.”
“According to her friends, they had to drag her off because she loved it so much, evidence that she was having an amazing time.”
Kern graduated from Iowa State University in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies and was employed as a Membership Director for a YMCA in Omaha.
She is survived by her parents, stepparents, sister, stepsiblings, grandparents and her boyfriend.
Jones and Haliburton have been together for more than seven years.
The couple is set to tie the knot on Aug. 1, according to an online wedding registry.
English (US)