3 years ago
AUBURNDALE, FL (AP) -- Rosalie Bradford, who held Guinness records for being the world's heaviest woman and losing the most weight, has died. She was 63.
Bradford died Wednesday at Lakeland Regional Medical Center. She weighed 1,050 pounds in January 1987, according to the 1994 Guinness Book of Records. She lost 736 pounds to weigh 314 pounds in September 1992, according to the record book.
Publicist Stephen Nortier said she was down to around 400 pounds just before dying. He said the cause of death won't be known until a medical examiner's report, but Bradford has spent the last year bedridden with complications from having her lymph nodes severed years ago.
At her largest, the Auburndale woman was 8-feet-wide and took 90 minutes to bathe. She credited Richard Simmons, the flamboyant fitness guru and television personality, with helping her lose weight. The two began corresponding after Bradford's friend wrote Simmons when she tried to commit suicide.
Bradford blamed her lifelong battle with obesity on abandonment, which bred a food addiction. Her Web site claims her peak weight was more than 1,200 pounds.
"I was just like an addict -- lie, cheat, steal, whatever to get my drug of choice. And my drug of choice was food," Bradford said in a 1999 interview with The Ledger of Lakeland.
Associated Press