Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian behind the Academy Award-nominated “Super Size Me,” has passed away due to complications from cancer. He died Thursday in New York.
“It was a sad day, as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” his brother Craig Spurlock said in a statement. “Morgan gave so much through his art, ideas and generosity. Today the world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I am so proud to have worked together with him.”
Spurlock was 53.
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Morgan Spurlock ate at McDonald’s for a month as the director of “Super Size Me.” (Randall Michelson/WireImage/Getty Images)
A native West Virginian, Spurlock made waves in 2004 with “Super Size Me,” when he ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month. The documentary, innovative and jarring, showed how Spurlock’s physical and mental health changed over the course of 30 days.
It took Spurlock 14 months to lose the weight he had gained during the experiment.
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Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me” was nominated for an Academy Award. (Getty Images)
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His next big project was in 2008, with “Where In the World is Osama bin Laden?” Throughout the documentary, Spurlock tries to locate the now-deceased terrorist.Â
Additional projects include “One Direction: This Is Us” and the reality television show “30 Days,” which he executive produced and starred in.
Morgan Spurlock is survived by numerous family members, including his two sons. (Michael Tran/FilmMagic)
In 2017, “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” was slated to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, but it was shelved at the height of the #MeToo movement when Spurlock came forward to detail his own history of sexual misconduct.
Spurlock admitted to having settled a sexual harassment case with a female assistant and revealed that he was accused of rape in college. He also disclosed that he had cheated on numerous partners. “I am part of the problem,” he wrote.
The documentary did end up being released in 2019.
Morgan Spurlock died in New York on Thursday. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
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He is survived by two sons, Laken and Kallen; mother Phyllis; father Ben; brothers Craig and Barry; and former spouses Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the mothers of his children.
The Associated Press Contributed to this report.