Donyelle Jones was remembered as “A wife. A daughter. A sister. A friend. And a warrior who kicked cancer’s ass every single day she was here.”
Donyelle Denise Wilson, known to dancing fans around the world as Donyelle Jones, is dead. She was 46.
An announcement on her official Instagram page said that Donyelle “transitioned” on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 8:34 am.
Her death comes nearly ten years after Donyelle was diagnosed with stage 3C breast cancer in 2016, which later progressed to Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.
Donyelle Denise Jones/Instagram
“Her spirit never dimmed. Her heart never hardened. And even in the storm, she never lost her smile,” the statement continued.
The hip-hop/jazz dancer burst into the spotlight on season 2 of So You Think You Can Dance, which aired in the summer of 2006. Her electrifying dance style propelled her to finish the competition in third place, behind winner Benji Schwimmer and runner-up Travis Wall.
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Since being diagnosed with breast cancer, Donyelle actively chronicled her journey on social media, highlighting July 6, 2025, as the date she taught her first dance class in four years — something she called a “bday gift to myself.”
The “theme for this evening was Love, Peace, Reassurance,” she wrote. “Cancer has robbed me of so much and I Iet the grief of losing what I had in dance or how it connected to my life take over the possibility of how it can show up in my life right now.”
“I’m learning at every twist and turn of this journey called life how to navigate each season as they come,” she continued.
In one of her final videos, posted just six days before her death, Donyelle said she had begun to put her affairs in order and had done “everything possible to extend my time in this dimension and at this point I have surrended to whatever God’s will is.”
Donyelle was remembered by many in Hollywood, including Yvette Nicole Brown, who wrote a tribute on Instagram, describing the dancer as a “dear friend.”
Donyelle Denise Jones/Instagram
“@donyelledenise8 was… no IS the best of us,” she wrote. “One of one. We love you, Donnie! Thank you for showing us how to live and fight and love and DANCE! We will see you on the other side. I will be the one dancing towards you. Me and my two left feet! 😘❤️🕊️”
Los Angeles dance company LA Dance Magic shared on Instagram that it was “heartbroken” by Donyelle’s death, writing that her “passion for dance, her kindness, and her love for the people around her touched countless lives and left an impact we will always carry with us.”
