Chrissy Teigen pays for woman's beauty school tuition

Chrissy Teigen has paid for a woman to attend beauty school.

The 31-year-old model and TV presenter casually donated $5,500 (£4,445) to Mercedes Edney, who had been trying to raise the money so she could attend esthetician school, on crowdfunding site YouCaring.

“I’ve seen this be your passion for such a long time now. So excited to see you fulfil your dream!” Chrissy wrote alongside her donation on the site, enabling Mercedes to hit her fundraising goal.

Mercedes, who hails from North Carolina and owns natural-skincare-product company Ixora Botanical Beauty, expressed her gratitude to the Lip Sync Battle co-host on social media once she'd realised the donation was not a prank. “THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!! @chrissyteigen I don’t even know how else to thank you right now," she posted on Twitter on Friday (07Apr17).

"I’m really excited for you to live out your passion," Chrissy replied, alongside three heart emojis.

Mercedes told NBC News she first thought the mother-of-one's donation was a glitch on the money transfer website PayPal. "I was at work, and I heard my PayPal alert go off. I saw the amount and said, 'What the hell? What’s wrong with PayPal?’ I thought it was a glitch," she explained.

The skincare specialist then shared a heartfelt message of thanks to Chrissy and the others who donated to her tuition fee fund on Instagram, alongside a photo of her down-payment for esthetician school.

"I have been crying all night and I cried in the office this morning as I paid my downpayment for esthetician school," Mercedes wrote on Saturday (08Apr17). "I haven't been this happy in a very long time. Thank you Chrissy and thank you to everyone else who voted or RT'd (retweeted) my link or have supported me this entire time. It means more to me than you'll ever know."