Jessica Stein’s industry colleagues concerned for influencer’s wellbeing

Jessica Stein was one of Australia’s first major international “influencers”. Since going quiet on social media, industry figures have expressed their concerns about her wellbeing.

She was one of Australia’s first major international “influencers” — long before most people knew what the term even meant.

But now mystery surrounds one of Australia’s most-followed lifestyle bloggers, whose two million-plus followers have begun expressing concern about her health and whereabouts.

Influencer: Jessica Stein. Picture: Instagram/@tuulavintage

Jessica Stein, who blogs under the Instagram handle Tuulu Vintage, became an international household name and one of the first “millionaire influencers” on the back of her stylish and widely-copied posts set in lush beachside settings and far-flung exotic locations.

However the Instagram page — which she began in 2010 and quickly saw her strike up lucrative partnerships with luxury brands such as Land Rover and fashion label Zimmerman — fell strangely silent about a year ago.

Influencer Jessica Stein in Italy.

Now fans and followers have begun expressing serious concern for the 38-year-old mother-of-one who, prior to January last year, had been a prolific Instagram poster with snaps that regularly garnered hundreds of thousands of “Likes”.

Stein had also, until then, been updating followers regularly on the health of her daughter Rumi who was born in 2017 with a rare chromosomal disorder known as mosaic trisomy 2, which means she has an extra copy of a chromosome.

With it comes a variety of health issues.

At the time Stein had openly blogged that her daughter’s condition was related to her own health struggles.

Jessica Stein with her daughter Ru.

The style blogger had been involved in a serious car accident at age 16 which had left her with major internal trauma.

Rumer’s rare and complicated genetic condition quickly became the focus of Stein’s page.

She and partner James also began a GoFundMe page to hep raise money to help offset the huge cost of their daughter’s medical treatments.

However that page, which raised almost $250,000 — has since been disabled.

Stein’s final post, in January last year, apologised to her 2.2 million followers for failing to post as regularly as usual, saying; “I have been struggling with my health, and found that being online wasn’t the best place for me.”

One of Jessica’s Instagram posts.

Jessica at a Byron Bay fashion event. Picture: James Ambrose

But fans have bombarded the comments section of her Instagram page over the months and, as recently as yesterday, have been pleading for an update.

“It’s been a long time since you’ve connected to IG, actually hope that you and your fam are OK,” one follower posted last week. Another added: “I worry.”

Confidential’s attempts to contact Stein this week were also unsuccessful.

However one fashion magazine veteran said the mystery surrounding her online “disappearance” has become the talk of the industry.

“She has more than two million followers. She is the original rock star of influencers so this is troubling for a lot of people. We all just hope she is okay”.