The Daily Beast reports that Daul Kim, who was found dead in her Paris apartment last week in an apparent suicide, instant-messaged with a close friend on the morning of Thursday, November 19, just hours before her death.

She was depressed, she wrote, according to a transcript of the chat seen by The Daily Beast. She and her boyfriend had just had another brutal physical fight. She’d punched him in the face; he’d yanked her hair. But she was afraid to leave him, afraid to suffer the agony of being apart. The last time they separated, she hadn’t been able to eat, dropping from 112 to 99 lbs. Her friend begged her to leave town, book a job, call her mother. No, she said. She’d miss her dog. She ended the conversation abruptly, saying she was going off to clean the house.

Hours later, her body was discovered by her boyfriend. This week, Kim's family closed her blog to the public and questioned whether her death was really a suicide. Concerns have been raised over how quickly French authorities came to this hypothesis.

Some are speculating about the effect her Korean background may have had on her emotional well-being. The Daily Beast continues:

“Daul was the face of Korea on a worldwide scale, and when someone represents Korea on that level, there is pressure,” says Joy Yoon, Kim’s friend and a fellow Korean. “Though Daul had an extremely bright future ahead of her, I don’t think she could cut loose from her background and the pressures of it. The loneliness she must have felt must have been suffocating. Did her agencies really have her best interests at heart? I know she wanted stability and somewhat of a normal life and even complained about it. Isn’t that a sign? A cry for help?”

The model is said to have left a suicide note.

-NYmag