Celebrities React To The Loss Of Margaret Thatcher (TWEETS)

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, most commonly known as the Iron Lady, has passed away at age 87.

Thatcher, who was Britain's first and only female prime minister, "died peacefully following a stroke this morning," her spokesperson Lord Bell said earlier. Thatcher retired from public life after a stroke in 2002 and suffered several strokes after that, notes CNN.

Meryl Streep, who has won an Oscar in 2012 for her portrayal of Thatcher in the film "The Iron Lady," released a statement honoring the late politician. "To me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit. To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class bound and gender phobic as it was, in the time that she did and the way that she did, was a formidable achievement," said Streep. "To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable."

Click through to see more celebrities who have taken to Twitter to mourn the loss of the controversial leader: