According to the CNN report, she died in her Manhattan home with friends and family at her side.

“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life, and lived it on her own terms,” Cooper said in a statement. “She was a painter, a writer and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they’d tell you: She was the youngest person they knew — the coolest and most modern.”

Vanderbilt was diagnosed with an advanced form of stomach cancer earlier this month, Cooper said.

Of her life, Cooper said, “I always thought of her as a visitor from another world, a traveler stranded here who’d come from a distant star that burned out long ago. I always felt it was my job to try to protect her.”

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