Barbara “B.” Smith, a fashion icon and restaurant owner, has passed away at 70 years old following a years-long battle with Alzheimer's disease reports NBC News.

Smith's death was announced in a Facebook post by her surviving husband Dan Gasby.

"It is with great sadness that my daughter Dana and I announce the passing of my wife, Barbara Elaine Smith," Gasby said on their official Facebook.

He relayed Smith's passing at 10:50 p.m. on Saturday at their home in Long Island.

Born on August 24, 1949 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Smith went on to have a successful fashion career which includes gracing the covers of 15 fashion magazines and being among one of the first Black women to cover Mademoiselle magazine in July 1976, according to her official website.

She was also a spokeswoman for companies like Verizon, Colgate Palmolive Oxy and McCormick’s Lawry seasonings products, and she was also featured in a Mercedes-Benz commercial.

Smith hosted the nationally syndicated cable show B. Smith with Style, which aired on NBC stations for about a decade. Long after her prime, she and Gasby would produce four specials for TV One.

Smith and Gasby were married in 1992, and the lifestyle guru was a stepmother to Gasby's daughter from another woman. Although the married couple split up in 2018, Gasby continued to care for her. Their living situation was marred with controversy last year when it was revealed that he’d found a new love who often co-habitated with the two as Blavity previously reported.

Smith was known as a the “Black Martha Stewart” according to Washington Post. The entrepreneur used to own three restaurants — including a bistro in New York’s theater district in 1986 — and has written several books, launched her own publication, B. Smith Style.

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