Netflix child actress Millena Brandao dies at 11
Millena Brandao—a child actress who appeared in the Netflix series Sintonia—has passed away. She was only 11 years old.
Her mother Thays Brandao announced the preteen star's death on the latter's Instagram page. "On May 2nd, we lost our little girl, but I'm sure she's in the arms of our Almighty Father and in a beautiful place to play," she began in the caption, sharing a photo of Millena with a halo.
She said that she will always remember the moments they spent together. "I'll never forget your joy that was contagious to everyone around you," Thays added.
"My girl, I'm already missing you more and more not having you here and I know I'll miss you even more in the days to come!" Thays wrote, describing Millena as the "light" in their lives. "I know that from up there, you'll continue to watch over us and light up our lives. And I'll love you forever, and you'll always be in my heart. I love you my girl!"
In an interview with Brazilian news outlet G1, Thays said that Millena began having severe pain on her head and legs in late April. She also started feeling drowsy and started losing her appetite at the time.
"She had a headache, but she could walk and talk. The doctor said it was dengue fever, but he didn't do any tests. He told us to take her back home and give her dipyrone," she said.
Eventually, however, Millena's condition got worse. She had difficulties walking, but was only asked by the doctor to go home and rest. She was rushed to the hospital again two days later when she fainted.
When Millena regained consciousness, Thays recalled her "putting her hand on her head and screaming in pain."
Millena was confined in the hospital and unfortunately suffered cardiac arrest the morning after. "Her lip turned purple. Then they resuscitated her and intubated her. From that day on, she never woke up again," Thays said.
Millena's CT scan results showed that she had a mass in her brain that measured five centimeters.
According to Thays, Millena had "two to three cardiac arrests" per day. "She had 13 arrests in total. She had never had that before. There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks," she recalled.
Millena was later declared brain dead and was left on life support. Her family then made the difficult decision to pull the plug. "I said that if we were to let her little heart stop beating on its own, we would suffer more, and so would she," mused Thays.
The actress' official cause of death remains unknown as of writing.
Millena debuted in the acting scene in 2023 via SBT (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão or Brazilian Television System). Aside from Sintonia, she also appeared in A infância de Romeu e Julieta (Romeo and Juliet's Childhood) and A Caverna Encantada (The Enchanted Cave), among others.
