Sophia Hutchins, who began working as Caitlyn Jenner‘s manager shortly after Jenner publicly came out as a transgender woman in 2015, died Wednesday in Malibu, Calif. due to injuries sustained in an ATV accident, People magazine confirmed. She was 29.
Hutchins was riding an all-terrain vehicle in Malibu, when she collided with another moving vehicle, TMZ reported. The impact pushed her off the road. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hutchins and Jenner met through a shared hair stylist around the time that Jenner publicly came out as a transgender woman. Hutchins, who had transitioned in college and not yet graduated, became one of Jenner’s closest confidantes as the former Olympian re-entered public life.
Hutchins served as the executive director and CEO of the Caitlyn Jenner Foundation, Jenner’s nonprofit that holds a mission for transgender activism. She also worked as Jenner’s manager, handling public engagements and other business affairs. She appeared in several episodes of the E! reality series “I Am Cait,” which ran for two seasons and chronicled Jenner’s life after transitioning. The show was canceled in 2016.
“Coming from a reality show, where every detail of your life is documented, to not seeking any press is kind of a big change,” Hutchins told Variety in 2018 in a profile of Jenner. “Caitlyn is not working on these [activist] issues for press attention. She’s doing it because she genuinely wants to help the community.”
Hutchins and Jenner’s partnership would occasionally spark tabloid rumors about a potential romantic relationship — a rumor that each of them denied.
“We are not going to get into that. But we are very close,” Jenner told Variety in 2018. “We do a lot of things together. We’re kind of inseparable. We’re the best of friends.”
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Born April 1, 1996 in Bellevue, Wash., Hutchins graduated from Pepperdine University in 2019 with a degree in economics and finance. In addition to her work with Jenner, she founded the sunscreen company Lumasol.
From Variety US