CATALONIA, Spain – The world's oldest person, Maria Branyas-Morera, has died at the age of 117, according to the Guinness World Records.
Her family announced her death on social media platform X on Tuesday.
“Maria Branyas has passed away. She passed away peacefully and painlessly in her sleep, just as she wished,” the post read.
Branyas-Morella passed away on August 19. Her death was confirmed by the Gerontology Research Group.
Guinness World Records said in an Instagram post that she is 117 years and 168 days old, making her the eighth-oldest person in history with a verifiable age.
She died peacefully in a nursing home in Catalonia, Spain, where she had lived for the past 20 years.
“I'm old, very old, but I'm not stupid,” she wrote on her X profile, where she frequently posts status updates and words of wisdom.
She was born in San Francisco, California on March 4, 1907, one year after her parents emigrated to the United States. Eight years later, they decided to return to Spain and settled in Catalonia.
In his biography, Guinness said his father did not survive the transatlantic voyage from America to Spain, dying of tuberculosis towards the end of the voyage.
Branyas Morera was also injured in a fall while playing with his siblings on the boat, leaving him with complete loss of hearing in one ear.
Her family arrived in Barcelona in 1915, during World War I.
In 2020, Branyas-Morella held the record for the world's oldest COVID-19 survivor when she celebrated her 113th birthday, until her record was broken later that year by Lucille Landon.
In a post announcing her death, her family reminisced about the days before she passed away.
“One day I will be gone. I will no longer drink coffee, eat yogurt or pet Fairy (her late dog),” she said. “I will no longer exist in this body. I don't know when, but it's very close. This long journey will end. Death will find me long and exhausted, but I hope to find me smiling, free and content.”
