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Viral TikTok sensation Lynn Yamada Davis, who had amassed more than 17 million followers for her Cooking with Lynja videos, has died at the age of 67 following a long battle with throat cancer.
According to the New York Times, Lynja died on January 1, 2024, at Riverview Medical Center in New Jersey, four years after she was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2019. She reportedly developed esophageal cancer in 2021
Lynja’s death was confirmed by her son Tim Davis, who started the cooking channel with his mother during the Covid-19 pandemic and worked behind the camera while she took center stage.
Cooking with Lynja was a software engineer in telecommunications before she became a viral sensation
Lynn Yamada Davis, ubiquitously known as Lynja, was born in New York City but lived most of her early life in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She graduated from MIT in 1977 with a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering. She had a successful career in telecommunications at Bell Labs (now AT&T Labs) before she ventured into the TikTok realm as a famous "granfluencer" in 2019.
Lynn was married to Hank Steinberg, with whom she had a daughter, Becky Steinberg, before the marriage ended in divorce. She then married Keith Davis, with whom she shared three children: Hannah, Tim, and Sean Davis.
Lynn’s daughter Hannah told the New York Times her mother worked for Bell Labs (now AT&T Labs) before she became a TikTok star.
“She had this whole chapter as a groundbreaking female engineer, and she was very proud of that.”
Lynn’s son Sean Davis, a professional soccer player who plays for the Nashville soccer club, told the Times that his mom would visit him in Nashville and get recognized in the street.
Sean Davis said,
“That’s how I realized how famous she was, people would ask for pictures and I would take the picture.”
Lynn Davis told PEOPLE in 2023 that she had “no idea” what TikTok was before her youngest son, Tim Davis, a videographer, began posting videos of her on the platform.
The duo reportedly began posting cooking videos peppered with humor on YouTube at the pandemic's beginning and slowly ventured into TikTok and Instagram.
A few months after they began uploading comically-edited videos, the former software engineer’s bacon, egg, and cheese recipe went viral online, amassing 300,000 views.
As the mother-son duo continued to post the wholesome and humorous cooking videos, they racked up an incredible 17 million followers.
Tim told the New York Times his mother requested that after she died, he posted a few older videos that they had made together about a decade ago. Her TikTok and Instagram account was kept active after her death, with videos that had been filmed and edited before her passing.
Tim said after the last Cooking with Lynja videos that feature his mother are uploaded, the account will be deactivated.
Tributes pour in as Tiktok star Cooking with Lynja passes away
Lynn’s Cooking with Lynja videos appealed to several generations of viewers, as evidenced by the outpouring of love and anguish on multiple social media platforms, including X.
She is survived by her second husband, Keith, her four children, and two grandchildren.
