Professional Dancer Dead At 25 After Eating Cookie

Professional dancer Órla Baxendale died at the age of 25 after eating a mislabeled holiday cookie from the popular northeastern grocery chain Stew Leonard's, her attorneys said in a statement shared on Wednesday (January 24).

The lawfirm Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf confirmed that Baxendale, a United Kingdom native, died on January 11 after going into anaphylactic shock, which stemmed from a severe allergic reaction to eating a Vanilla Florentine cookie containing peanuts during a social gathering in Connecticut.

“Órla’s passing stemmed from an unfortunate incident involving the consumption of a cookie manufactured by Cookies United and sold by Stew Leonard’s, which contained undisclosed peanuts,” Adimey wrote.

“This tragic oversight has led to the recall of the Vanilla Florentine Cookies from Stew Leonard’s stores in Danbury and Newington, CT, for the period of November 6 – December 31, 2023.”

An investigation into Baxendale's death revealed “gross negligence and reckless conduct of the manufacturer and/or sellers” for not stating that the cookies' contained peanuts on their packaging, adding, "this failure in proper disclosure has led to this devastating yet preventable outcome."

Stew Leonard's CEO Stew Leonard Jr. issued a video alongside his family in which he claimed that Cookies United, the Long Island bakery that the stores purchase the cookies from didn't acknowledge the change in vanilla Florentine Cookies ingredients.

“I’m here with our family and, I mean we’re just all devastated, very sad. I have four daughters, one of them is in her 20s. I can imagine how that family feels right now,” Leonard said via News 12.

Cookies United, however, claimed it did share the change with the popular regional grocery chain in the months leading up to Baxendale's death.

“Stew Leonard’s claimed in an earlier press release that ‘the cookies contain peanuts, which was an ingredient not disclosed to Stew Leonard’s by the manufacturer,’” United Cookies wrote in a statement Tuesday (January 23). “Unfortunately, considering the tragedy of these circumstances, we need to point out that Stew Leonard’s was notified by Cookies United in July of 2023 that this product now contains peanuts, and all products shipped to them have been labeled accordingly.”

Baxendale moved to New York City in 2018 to train as a scholarship student at the Ailey School, according to a biography shared on the school's website, and had performed during New York Fashion Week, as well as having been involved in productions at Lincoln Center, according to the New York Post.