The world has lost a woman who spent much of her life helping other people heal.
Lara Kudayisi Don-Momoh, popularly known as DearCoachLara, died on July 30, 2026, after a brief illness. She was 42. Her death came only weeks after she and her husband, broadcaster and entrepreneur Teddy Don-Momoh, welcomed their first child together. Her family announced her death and asked the public for prayers and privacy as they mourned.
The news brought a sudden end to the life of a woman whose own journey had been filled with difficult chapters. Lara had become a mother at 19, experienced heartbreak repeatedly, gone through 15 abortions according to her own account, and later endured the collapse of her first marriage. She also openly spoke about depression, emotional pain and reaching a point where she contemplated suicide.
Yet those experiences eventually became the foundation of the work for which millions came to know her.
Before she became a behavioural therapist and healing coach, Lara was known as a relationship coach and professional matchmaker. She helped singles navigate relationships, founded The Complete Singles Club and became known as The Matchmaking Mistress.
Then her own marriage ended.
The woman who had spent years helping people find love suddenly had to rebuild her own life. That painful experience changed the direction of her career and eventually led her towards therapy, emotional healing and mindset transformation.
She founded Lara Kudayisi International, created The Healing School, wrote books about her experiences, took her message to television and built a community around helping people confront trauma and emotional dysfunction.
Lara Kudayisi’s life therefore leaves behind more than a career in coaching.
It leaves behind a story of reinvention.
Lara Kudayisi’s Early Life and the Experiences That Shaped Her
Lara Kudayisi was the first of four children and was born and raised in Ogun State. She has described herself as a happy and talkative child who loved reading, talking and exploring different interests. From an early age, she dreamed of appearing on television, although she did not know what she would eventually talk about.
Her life changed dramatically when she became a mother at 19.
The experience came with criticism and disappointment. Lara has spoken about how her father’s reaction affected her after she became pregnant as a teenager. She later explained that she became determined to prove that becoming a young mother would not prevent her from getting married or building the life she wanted.
That determination influenced many of the decisions she made afterwards.
Lara has described a long and complicated relationship history. According to her own account, she experienced 14 heartbreaks and 15 abortions before eventually getting married. She has also spoken about the emotional consequences of those experiences and how they influenced her understanding of relationships, self-worth and healing.
Those experiences eventually became part of the story she would tell publicly.
Instead of hiding the parts of her life that could attract judgement, Lara began using them to connect with people facing similar struggles.
That openness would later become one of the defining features of her career.
Lara Kudayisi’s Matchmaking Career and the Marriage That Changed Everything
Lara’s professional journey initially centred on relationships.
She founded The Complete Singles Club, a community where singles could meet, interact, network and potentially find partners. But she noticed that simply putting people in the same space did not always lead to meaningful relationships.
So she started personally introducing members to potential partners.
The results encouraged her to take matchmaking seriously as a profession. She eventually adopted the name The Matchmaking Mistress and built a business around helping singles find compatible partners.
Her work soon expanded beyond matchmaking.
She became a relationship coach, writing and speaking about love, marriage and the decisions people make before entering relationships. Her personal experiences gave her a story that many people could relate to, even when the details were difficult.
But the biggest test of her philosophy came when her own marriage failed.
Lara left her first marriage in 2017 and moved to Abuja to start over. She continued her matchmaking career and secured a radio programme, Happily Ever with Lara. She had her children with her and believed she was beginning another chapter.
But the new chapter became another difficult season.
Lara later revealed that she entered another relationship before properly dealing with the wounds from her marriage. The relationship ended badly, while her business and finances also suffered.
She has described becoming deeply depressed during this period.
At one point, she questioned how she could continue presenting herself as a marriage coach after her own marriage had ended. She felt overwhelmed by heartbreak, debt and business failure. She eventually reached a point where she attempted to end her life.
She survived.
And that survival became the beginning of another Lara.
Lara Kudayisi’s Healing Journey and The Healing School
The experience forced Lara to confront something she had spent years helping other people understand: healing has to come before rebuilding.
She sought help and began studying the mind and human behaviour. She trained as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Family Life Coach and developed expertise in areas including Neuro-Linguistic Programming, hypnotherapy, neurological repatterning, emotional intelligence, anger management, fear mastery and performance consulting.
Her transformation became the foundation of her new career.
In 2018, Lara published How the Matchmaker’s Marriage Failed, a memoir about her childhood, relationships, marriage, divorce and personal struggles. She had decided to tell the story herself rather than allow other people’s assumptions to define it.
The book opened another door.
After sharing her story, Lara began hearing from people who had experienced their own forms of emotional pain and trauma. She realised that many of them were carrying wounds they had never confronted.
In January 2019, she created The Healing School, an eight-week online programme focused on emotional healing and personal transformation. Her organisation says the programme has since helped thousands of people across more than 25 countries.
The Healing School became one of the most important parts of her professional identity.
Lara was no longer simply helping people find partners.
She was helping them understand why they kept making certain choices in the first place.
Her work focused on childhood dysfunction, emotional trauma, relationship patterns, loss, abandonment and other experiences that can affect how people see themselves and interact with others.
Lara Kudayisi’s Books, Television Career and Legacy
Lara eventually took her message beyond coaching sessions and online programmes.
She became an author, writing books including Dear Lara, What Do I Do?, What Is Wrong in My Taste in Men?, How the Matchmaker’s Marriage Failed and The 31 Days Healing Plan. Her memoir remains particularly important because it documented the experiences that shaped her transformation from relationship coach to healing practitioner.
She also brought her work to television.
Lara presented How They Healed on Africa Magic Family, a programme that featured people, including celebrities, sharing their journeys through trauma and emotional pain. She also produced Dear Coach Lara, extending her message through television and digital platforms.
As her career evolved, she expanded Lara Kudayisi International beyond therapy and relationship coaching. Her organisation became involved in coaching, couples therapy, finding love after trauma, life after divorce and coaching certification.
She also moved into mindset transformation, strategy and entrepreneurship, positioning herself as a mindset and strategy coach and helping other coaches and professionals turn their experiences into businesses.
Her Reinvention Project drew directly from her own story. In describing the programme, Lara revisited the period after her divorce when she moved to Abuja, lost her footing and eventually confronted the pain she had been avoiding. She presented reinvention as something she had experienced personally before teaching it to others.
Lara also continued to speak about women, emotional pain and the impact of unresolved trauma on people’s potential.
Then, in July 2026, her own story came to an unexpected end.
Lara had welcomed a daughter with Teddy Don-Momoh only about two weeks before her death. Her passing after a brief illness shocked the people who knew her personally, her professional community and the many people who had encountered her work.
Her death is particularly poignant because so much of her public message centred on surviving difficult seasons and finding the strength to begin again.
Lara Kudayisi spent her life telling people that their worst experiences did not have to become the end of their story.
Her own life carried that message.
She became a mother at 19. She endured heartbreak, divorce and periods of profound emotional pain. She rebuilt her career after losing her marriage. She moved from matchmaking into therapy and healing. She turned her most painful experiences into books, programmes, television shows and a platform that reached people beyond Nigeria.
The world has now lost Lara Kudayisi, but the work she built continues through the people she taught, the programmes she created and the stories she encouraged others to tell.
Her life was a story of pain, reinvention, healing and purpose. And perhaps her greatest legacy is the reminder that a person’s most difficult chapter does not have to be their final one.
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