Social media influencer Veruca Salt announces on Instagram that her baby has died at just one-month-old

A TikTok and Instagram influencer has announced that her one-month-old baby son has died.

Veruca Salt, whose real name is Kimberley Summer Hartley, aged 25, said in her Instagram Stories that her son had died "in his sleep" on Monday morning (February 5), but that she doesn't "know what happened".

So, who is Salt and what exactly did she write? Here's what we know so far.

Who is Veruca Salt?

Salt is a social media star who documented her pregnancy and her life as a mum on her Instagram and TikTok pages, where she has hundreds of thousands of followers. She was born in New Zealand but has lived in Australia since she was three-years-old, and currently lives on the Gold Coast, a region south of Brisbane on Australia’s east coast.

Salt gave birth to her son, Cash Harrison Stirling, on Tuesday December 19 and confirmed the news with her Instagram followers in a post at the time. She had previously announced that she was expecting a baby boy in June by sharing a photo of herself with a cake which had blue in the centre.

Salt first came to public attention back in August 2019 when she sparked a national manhunt after disappearing from a wedding at Mantra Legends Hotel in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.  Her friends were deeply concerned because they said she was "a social media addict" who "would go without food before she went without her phone".

Their plea for help in finding her went viral on social media and she was then found 1,000km away a week later by police living at a brothel in Wollongong, south of Sydney.

She later said she left her phone behind at her hotel and was waiting for it to be posted back. "I lost my phone at the wedding, but I had to get on a plane straight afterwards anyway because I had to go to work," she told Daily Mail Australia. "The phone was handed in to the hotel reception a few days later, so they posted it to me. I was going to buy a new one, but there was no point when I realised I was getting mine back."

What happened to Veruca Salt's baby son?

Salt wrote a post on her Instagram Stories and said: "It is with a heavy heart that I'm writing this. My baby died in his sleep on Monday morning. I don't know what happened, he is having an autopsy this week but it is unlikely that I'll ever have an answer.

She then revealed that the heartbreaking reason behind the timing of her announcement was the comments of well-meaning fans on her social media account. "I'm just saying this because people are still commenting on my TikToks saying how happy I look with him and "just wait for the toddler stage" and stuff, and I really can't take it anymore. I'm really sorry," she wrote.

Queensland Police are investigating the baby's death. A police statement to Daily Mail Australia confirmed that police had been called to a Southport unit at 6.13am on Monday February 5."

Last week, the influencer shared a montage that showed her cradling Cash. The comments section of the video has now been flooded with messages of condolence for the young star.