The tattoo artist community has lost one of their own.
Ryan Hadley, who competed on season six of the Spike reality show Ink Master in 2015, died June 20 after battling cancer. He was 46.
“Ryan left this world last night surrounded by loved ones,” read a message posted on his Instagram June 21. “While his life was cut short, in that time he left a legacy behind in both the art and tattoo world. He loved his many fans, his friends and clients, and most of all his children. He’ll be missed and always remembered. A legend forever. #rip #f–kcancer.”
The Fort Wayne, Ind. native, a father of six, revealed last December on a GoFundMe page set up by his adult daughter Whitney that he was undergoing chemotherapy for a seminoma, a malignant germ cell tumor. It was not his first time undergoing cancer treatment.
“I am now hospitalized to doing the chemotherapy way earlier than I anticipated,” he wrote on Instagram. “The last time I went through with this it nearly killed me and scared the hell outta me.”