Months After Hamptons Tragedy, Widow Contends With a Tangle of Debt

On Instagram, Candice Miller showed the world glittering parties and vacations. When her husband, Brandon Miller, died, he had $33.6 million in debt and just $8,000 in the bank.


After Brandon Miller’s death, Candice Miller moved to Miami, where she is making a new life with their daughters. Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images For Hamptons Magazine

By Katherine Rosman
Dec. 27, 2024

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How an Instagram-Perfect Life in the Hamptons Ended in Tragedy
Aug. 8, 2024

Brandon Miller might have been largely unknown if not for “Mama and Tata,” the Instagram account of his wife, Candice Miller. For years, she enticed a following of tens of thousands of voyeurs by sharing copious photos of their vintage-cars-private-planes-deep-sea-yachts lifestyle.

But social media notoriety no longer bears much difference from fame. And so when Mr. Miller, 43, died over the Fourth of July holiday after poisoning himself in the garage of the family’s Hamptons home — amid rumors of indiscriminate spending and staggering debt — a media frenzy followed.

On Reddit, TikTok and Instagram, the question of what had gone wrong became summertime sport. Online sleuths screen-shotted the photo crumbs that were not swept away after Ms. Miller scrapped her account, zooming in to search for fissures in the glamour. News and tabloid publications picked over mortgage filings and public loan records, seeking to understand how the Millers’ extravagant house-of-cards existence had finally toppled.

The public was transfixed, and then it moved on. … But behind the scenes, a different sort of frenzy quickly unfurled as creditors scrambled for repayment, lawsuits were filed and a lavish property — once the site of gilded parties — was hurried to market.

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The Millers’ vacation home in the Hamptons, which was loaded with five mortgages totaling nearly $12 million, was recently sold. Johnny Milano for The New York Times

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Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City. More about Katherine Rosman

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 28, 2024, Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: In Shadow of Social Media Fame, Widow Deals With Tangle of Debt. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe