New 'world's oldest person' is Violet Mosse Brown, aged 117

The oldest person in the world is now Violet Mosse Brown, a 117-year-old woman from Jamaica.

Congratulations, Violet!

Known as ‘Aunt V’ to friends, she was born in Trelawney on March 10, 1900 and has lived there all of her phenomenally long life.

After celebrating her 110th milestone, she told a local paper: ‘Really and truly, when people ask what me eat and drink to live so long, I say to them that I eat everything, except pork and chicken, and I don’t drink rum and dem tings.

‘You know, sometimes I ask myself, ‘Am I really 110 years old?’ because I don’t feel like 110.’

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness tweeted his congratulations:

The world's oldest human is Jamaican Violet Brown, who was born on March 10, 1900. Congrats Violet. pic.twitter.com/AnjXdHK1Kz

— Andrew Holness (@AndrewHolnessJM) 15 April 2017

She once told the Jamaica Observer that she ‘likes fish and mutton and sometimes she will have cow foot.’ A staunch contributor to her church, she said ‘My faith in serving God, and believing strongly in the teaching of the bible’ helped her reach such a long age. 

Her eldest son is almost a centenarian himself, and is believed to be the oldest human to have a parent still living. Violet succeeds Italy’s Emma Morano as the world’s oldest person. Emma was the last person whose life spanned three centuries, from 1899 to 2017, and had an more unusual recipe for long life – staying single and eating raw egg every day.