Screenshot/TikTok – @sachafreeman0
- Amy Winifred Hawkins, a 110-year-old TikTok microstar and Wales' oldest woman, died on Thursday.
- Hawkins went viral in January after her great-grandson shared a video of her covering a 1912 song.
- Hawkins worked as a window dresser and later a fire-watcher during World War II, Express reported.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
A 110-year-old TikTok star who was reportedly the oldest woman in Wales has died.
Amy Winifred Hawkins went viral on TikTok with a video that showed her performing a rendition of the 1912 Jack Judge song "It's A Long Way to Tipperary" while holding a cup of tea to celebrate her 110th birthday on January 24.
She died on Thursday at the Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital in Ystrad Mynach, a town in the county borough of Caerphilly, soon after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the Welsh outlet WalesOnline.
The TikTok, which was posted by Hawkins' great-grandson Sacha Freeman under the handle @sachafreeman0, has over 150,000 views and 35,000 likes, with many comments applauding the elder's effort and admiring her for living such a long life.
Hawkins was "flabbergasted" at the amount of likes and comments she received for her first TikTok, according to an on-screen caption on another one of Freeman's videos.
Due to COVID-19, Hawkins could not do her usual birthday ritual of going to a local pub and receiving loads of gifts, so she celebrated with her family by relaxing at home and singing old tunes, which led to the creation of the viral TikTok, according to ITV News.
After the first clip gained traction, Freeman posted several other videos featuring Hawkins, including one in which the supercentenarian sang Mark Sheridan's "Who Were You With Last Night" and another where she covered the music hall song "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty."
Freeman's most recent TikTok, posted in early February, showed Hawkins covering a tune that appeared to be in Welsh.
Hawkins was born in 1911 in Cardiff but lived in Monmouth, Wales, with four generations of family members, according to the BBC. She was the oldest woman in the country, the BBC reported.
The TikTok microcelebrity worked as a window dresser and later a fire-watcher during World War II, and spent much of her life in the Welsh city of Newport until her husband, George Hawkins, died in 1996, according to the British outlet Express.
The woman's great-grandson Freeman said Hawkins "didn't really understand the concept of TikTok at first. I had to tell her it was 'on the computer' and could be seen by people all over the world," reported ITV News.
Hawkins' daughter, Rozi Hawkins, told WalesOnline that Amy "was lovely and she just cared about other people really more than herself."
The Monmouth city government and the Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
Read more stories from Insider's Digital Culture desk.