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‘Gold Rush’ Star Rick Ness Loses Mom To Cancer: Parker Schnabel’s Foreman Announces Her Death on Social Media

By Georgia Makitalo
Published on: 00:51 PST, Mar 21, 2018

On Tuesday, Rick Ness went on Twitter to make the heartbreaking announcement that his mom had passed away from cancer. During the middle of Season 8 of Gold Rush, Rick had to leave the show to spend some time with his mom because her her cancer had returned, and he needed to be there to support her.

According to a February interview Ness had with PopCulture, Rick revealed that his mom had tried every sort of treatment for her brain tumor, yet, tragically, nothing worked.

Despite this discouraging news, at the time Rick described her as “happy,” but he still took out time to be with her and “just making sure she’s OK, because she’s having a little bit of balance issues.”

“She’s gone through about as much treatment as she can go through and the cancer’s still there, so the outlook is not good, but for right now she’s happy.”

Although there is not a lot known about his mother, Ness did reveal to the publication that she had a really good appetite and although quite petite, he found it “crazy” that she could still out-eat him!

Clearly, his adorable mom had a good sense of humor, as he tweeted a birthday photo of her back on her final birthday, January 24. In the pic, she stuck her tongue out at him. In the caption, he joked about her age–although there is no doubt that his youthful-looking mom could have passed for 39.

“Happy Birthday Ma! 55 years old today. Oops, I mean 39…again.”

Besides laughter, there was clearly a lot of tenderness. Memorializing his mother in the loving Twitter statement, the Gold Rush star revealed that his beloved mom died near him, with his face “resting against hers.” Rick was heartbroken because she was way too young to die.

“RIP Mom. 55 years young,” he wrote. “She left us peacefully in her house and with my face resting against hers she took her last breath. It hurts. It’s not long enough. Cancer is the devil.”

During the most recent season of Gold Rush, Parker Schnabel was on a quest to get an unprecedented 5,000 ounces of gold, and half of that total was to be Rick’s responsibility. Yet, there were some natural and mechanical obstacles throughout the season. Rick spent most of the time lagging behind Parker, as well as disagreeing with him.

Yet, when Rick got the call that he needed to return to Northern Wisconsin to his ailing mother, there was no question that he had to go, and Parker made it clear, “Family comes first.”

Parker told the cameras that losing a guy is tough, but losing a guy like Rick is rather unimaginable, as Ness is key to the success of his ambitious operation.

Yet, the team worked together, and together with Parker, they even did some rearranging of the setup. This didn’t exactly make Rick happy when he returned, but in the end, the crew wound up with over 6,000 ounces of gold, surpassing their goal. There was plenty of time to celebrate with a few cheers and beers.

As of now, there is no information on funeral arrangements for Rick’s mother. At this time, fans are leaving words of sympathy to the grieving Gold Rush miner, who tragically lost his mother way too early.

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