Influencers drown after refusing to wear life jackets to avoid "ruining their selfies"

Wednesday, October 30, 2024 - Two influencers who refused to wear life jackets drowned when their boat was sunk by a huge wave after a yacht party in Brazil.

Victims Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim, 37, and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria, 27, were found d£@d after their overcrowded boat sank off a stretch of coast known as the Devil's Throat.

Now nearly a month after the drownings, police say the women died when their overloaded boat was swamped as it returned to the Brazilian coast as they left the party.

Sao Vincente police commissioner Marcos Alexandre Alfino says the influencers had refused to wear life jackets, local media reported on 25th October.

He said: "Some didn’t want to put them on because they were taking selfies. They said that they get in the way of their tanning."

The revelation came after the boat's skipper, not named by police, had given extensive interviews to police over the deaths.

The captain, one of five survivors, said he had been ordered to take six influencers to the shore despite his boat having a maximum capacity of five passengers.

So when the craft was hit by a huge wave on 29th September, reports local media, it was too heavy to ride it out and began to sink. The skipper told police he had tried desperately to save everyone.

Beatriz's body was found first drifting out to sea and was recovered by Brazil's Maritime Firefighters.

Aline was found dead a week later washed up on the coast of Itaquitanduva Beach.

Police are now trying to establish if their de@ths were simply a tragic accident or could have been prevented.

Commissioner Alfino explained: "All this is being determined very calmly to conclude if the fatalities were based on recklessness or negligence."

Heartbreakingly mum-of-one Aline, who could not swim, had posted her last social media images as she posed on the boat in a daring bikini.

CrossFit trainer Beatriz had been a model since she was a schoolgirl.

Local media named the survivors as Vanessa Audrey da Silva, Camila Alves de Carvalho, Daniel Goncalves Ferreira, Gabriela Santos Lima and Natan Cardoso Soares da Silva.

Vanessa later told local media that a group of friends and influencers had met up to party on a luxury yacht and spent the day cruising and drinking. They later split into two groups to get back to shore but one was swamped by a wave on the return journey.

Vanessa said she had managed to scramble into a life jacket and survived by clinging to rocks.

She said: "There was a moment in the water when no one could see anyone. I was fighting for life."

Another survivor Camila says she clutched a life jacket in her hands and clung on for dear life.

She said: "There were very strong waves, we almost died. We didn’t know how to swim. I knew that I couldn’t take it for long. I hurt my foot and swallowed a lot of water. We threw ourselves into the rocks."