Influencer Jeri Wirtz of ‘Jeri and Mike’ TikTok Duo Dies at 74 After Sharing 9-Year Breast Cancer Journey

Jeri Wirtz, the influencer known as one half of “Jeri and Mike,” died at her home on Dec. 6. She was 74.

The news was shared on the couple’s shared Instagram account on Dec. 8, noting that Jeri was surrounded on her final day “by lifelong friends and family as she watched her children and grandchildren decorate the Christmas tree with her favorite music playing.”

Jeri and her husband Mike have captured the hearts and minds of the internet with their viral, nearly 50-year interracial love story — which they shared for their combined following of over 900,000 across Instagram and TikTok. Jeri also openly documented her journey with stage 4 breast cancer after her diagnosis nine years ago.

The couple first met on a summer day in 1976, out at the pool by their apartment complex, the duo shared in a 2024 interview with PEOPLE. After exchanging numbers, the rest was history.

Jeri and Mike tied the knot the following year at a small garden wedding, only ten years after Loving v. Virginia struck down laws barring interracial marriages. While legal, the pair faced a spectrum of public opinions about their courtship — though they never let it deter their love.

“Naturally, you’re going to think, ‘If I start dating her, what are people going to think?’ and are they going to think of it in a negative way or positive way,” admitted Mike to PEOPLE. “But as far as my feelings were concerned, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from dating someone I was interested in.”

“We knew prejudice was out there,” Jeri added. “But we were determined not to let that interrupt our lives. We were going to focus on us. The world was going to do whatever they wanted and we were going to take care of what we needed to take care of — starting a family, raising our kids.”

Over four decades into their love story, the duo started content creation in the last few years after their son Ryan created and posted a video about their marriage as an anniversary gift, and it went viral.

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“We just started doing them, like when we go to visit our grandkids, we would take clips of us playing with them, and that’s how it took off,” Jeri explained in 2024. “And we enjoy it.”

In the last month, Jeri experienced a “significant decline in her health,” according to the post announcing her death. She began in-home hospice care last week.

“Without Jeri, the world doesn’t shine as bright,” read the post. “ We will continue to honor her life and the beautiful legacy she leaves behind — as a wife, mother, sister, friend, artist, and the extraordinary person she was. Our world will never be the same without her.”