At Age 26 she was diagnosed with AIDS, which was a newly recognized disease at the time. As her condition worsened, she was transferred to Philadelphia's Hahnemann University Hospital in her hometown.   Her mother stayed with her day and night, allowing virtually no visitors.
On November 18, 1986, aged 26, Carangi died of AIDS-related complications.  Her closed-casket funeral (recommended by the funeral director due to the ravages of AIDS) was held on November 21 at a small funeral home in Philadelphia. Nobody from the fashion world attended, though her death was kept private by her family.   However, weeks later, Francesco Scavullo, Carangi's friend and confidant, sent a mass card when he heard the news.
She was the first model to die of AIDS.

Carangi was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the third and youngest child of Joseph Carangi, a restaurant owner, and Kathleen Adams, a homemaker. She had two older brothers. Her father is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Welsh ancestry. Joseph and Kathleen had an unstable marriage due to Joseph's domestic abuse of Kathleen, which resulted in Kathleen abandoning her family when Carangi was eleven years old Those who knew her blamed her "fractured childhood" for the instability and drug-dependence that stilted her adult life.   She was described as "needy and manipulative" by relatives who recalled her as spoiled and shy as a child and a "Mommy’s girl" who did not receive the motherly attention that she desired.

In her adolescent years, Carangi found the attention she sought; the attention came from other teenage girls  When she was thirteen, Carangi would send girls flowers and they would develop crushes on her, no matter their sexual orientation.

While in high school, Carangi bonded with "the Bowie kids"—a group of obsessive David Bowie fans like herself.^[2] They emulated Bowie's "defiantly weird, high-glam" style.

Carangi was drawn to Bowie not only due to his fashion preferences but also due to his ambiguous gender play and outspoken bisexuality  A friend of Carangi described her "tomboy persona" and relaxed openness about her sexuality as reminiscent of the character Cay in the 1985 film Desert Hearts.
Carangi and her "bi-try Bowie-mad" friends hung out in Philadelphia’s gay clubs and bars. She was beginning to settle into a lesbian identity, but did not want to take up "the accepted lesbian style".

After being featured in Philadelphia newspaper ads, Carangi moved to New York City at the age of 17, where she quickly rose to prominence. She was a favorite model of various fashion photographers, including Francesco Scavullo, Arthur Elgort, Richard Avedon, Denis Piel, Marco Glaviano, and Chris von Wangenheim.

Well-integrated within the fashion world, Carangi had the selection of several photographers, most notably Scavullo.   By the end of 1978, Carangi was already a well-established model.

In a 20/20interview, she said her rise was "awfully fast": "I started working with well-known people in the industry, very quickly. I didn't build into a model. I just sort of became one."

Carangi was a regular at Studio 54 and the Mudd Club.   She usually used cocaine in clubs, but later began to develop a heroin addiction.

In October 1978, Carangi did her first major shoot with top fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim. Wangenheim had her pose nude behind a chain-link fence with makeup assistant Sandy Linter. Carangi immediately became infatuated with Linter and started to pursue her, though the relationship never became stable.
On March 1, 1980, Carangi's agent, Wilhelmina Cooper, died of lung cancer. Devastated, Carangi started abusing drugs.   Scavullo recalled a fashion shoot in the Caribbean when "She was crying, she couldn't find her drugs. I literally had to lay her down on her bed until she fell asleep."
 By 1980, Carangi began having violent temper tantrums, walking out of photo shoots, and even falling asleep in front of the camera. The November 1980 issue of Vogue stated that Carangi's track marks from shooting heroin were visible even after airbrushing.  The photographer disputes this claim.
For three weeks, she was signed with Eileen Ford, who soon dropped her.  Carangi's attempt to quit drugs was abandoned when she learned that her good friend and fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim died in a car accident. According to the Stephen Fried bookThing of Beauty, she locked herself in a bathroom for hours, shooting heroin.  
 In fall 1981, Carangi looked significantly different than she used to. Despite this, she was still determined to make a comeback in the fashion industry. She contacted Monique Pillard (who was largely responsible for Janice Dickinson's career), who was hesitant to sign her.
In rehab, she told staff that she had done sexual favors for drug money and had been raped by a dealer.  Once heavily pursuing modeling again, she received the harsh treatment she had been able to avoid last time. Nobody would book her. Desperate, Carangi turned to Scavullo.
She landed a Cosmopolitan cover, a gift from Scavullo. Shot in the winter of 1982, it would be her last cover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gia_Carangi