Former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Brandi Glanville says she has emptied her retirement savings and spent “hundreds of thousands” of dollars battling a string of serious illnesses, despite carrying health insurance at the time.
“I had the leisure of saying no in the past, but then I had all these medical bills and whatnot,” Glanville told Fox News Digital. “So I had to say yes. And it was kind of like at a time where I needed to prove to myself that I could do it again.”
Glanville, who lives and built her television career in Beverly Hills, described a system she says failed her even as the bills piled up.
“The medical system here is broken. So I have, like, from 8 a.m. on, I have creditors from, like, medical things calling me, like from Cedars-Sinai. It’s out of control. Like I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars that I had saved. I emptied my 401(k). And it’s all for medical bills. And I had insurance, and they told me nothing was wrong. I’m so angry. You know, going into my mid-fifties I had a cushion and that’s gone. So it’s very scary right now.”
Glanville revealed in September that she had been diagnosed with a highly resistant strain of ESBL Klebsiella and Enterobacter with biofilm, coccidioidomycosis (commonly known as Valley fever), Demodex dermatitis and mononucleosis. She has said her daily IV treatment alone was expected to run between $3,300 and $6,000 per month.
The health struggles trace back further. Glanville has previously said she believes she contracted a parasite after a 2023 trip to Morocco. That illness caused facial paralysis and was initially misdiagnosed as stress-induced angioedema. She has said she spent more than $70,000 trying to get answers while the mystery condition disfigured her face.
A Fresh Injury on ‘Special Forces’
Despite the toll on her body and finances, Glanville pushed herself further by joining “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.” During training on jumping from a helicopter into water, an instructor told her at the last moment to keep her head up, leaving her little time to adjust before the jump.
“My head hit the water. It was like a Mack truck – it, like, ran over my head. I thought that was it,” she said. “And then a few seconds later, my body hits the water so hard. It was paralyzing almost. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ But it was in slow motion.”
Glanville said she suffered a perforated eardrum, a concussion, a bruised sternum and a cracked rib. The injuries were serious enough that doctors required her to travel to the hospital by boat rather than by air. She battled an intense headache along with sharp pain from the rib injury that made breathing and coughing difficult.
Once hospitalized, doctors told her she could not fly and warned she might be stuck for at least two weeks, possibly requiring surgery. After several days of recovery and a follow-up evaluation, Glanville said she chose to leave despite doctors’ reservations about her getting on a plane.
“Honestly, I’m so proud of myself. I feel like a badass, even though I didn’t last long,” she said. “I went in, I conquered, I got hurt, and then I left and that was enough for me.”
“Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” airs Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. ET on FOX.
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