Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster, mom to models Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid and son Anwar, has been battling lyme disease for some time. She’s been very public about her illness, she often posts selfies from bed, and she’s claimed that Bella and Anwar (not Gigi, the most famous one) also suffer from the tick borne virus. A few weeks ago, she Instagrammed photos of her two youngest children’s medication for lyme, which she first stated they were diagnosed with in early 2012. In a new post to her Bravo blog, Yolanda claims that the teens were diagnosed at the end of 2013. I really don’t understand how she could fudge the dates that much, but maybe she’s confused.
Yolanda had some people rolling their eyes when she said that Bella, 19, and Anwar, 16, had lyme too. The teens have gone to events with Yolanda and they look fine, plus Bella is an active model, so some people assumed Yolanda was projecting her own health issues on them. In fact the children’s father, Mohamed Hadid, allegedly said that Bella and Anwar are fine. At least that’s what Yolanda’s RHOBH costar Lisa Vanderpump claimed on the episode which aired yesterday. In response to Lisa’s claims’ Mohamed Instagrammed a statement which said, in part “I do not wish to make public my family’s private matters, but I would like to make it clear that I completely and unequivocally support my children and their mother,” which is nice but doesn’t actually clarify the issue. He supports Yolanda, he doesn’t say if he thinks she’s right. (Not that he would know for sure, I’m just saying he doesn’t really explain it.) Mohamed also wrote that he said the children were doing “fine” when asked and that was probably what was misconstrued.
Anyway Yolanda had some things to say about her kids’ health and she posted to her Bravo blog about it and defended Bella particularly, Instagramming a photo of Bella with an IV in her arm and writing that Bella had to give up a potential career horseback career because of the effects of lyme.
After the episode, Foster fired back against Vanderpump’s claims on her Bravo TV blog.
“Still, I am the subject of conversation amongst ‘friends.’ Looks like I got out of dodge right on time at that barbecue,” she wrote. “I have nothing to prove and know that my journey is public due to the job I’ve chosen as a Housewife, but I can’t accept something so delicate as my children’s health being talked about in such a way.”
Foster went on to note that she’s been working with her children’s father the entire time to ensure they have the proper care.
“With Mohamed’s support, I have managed my children’s healthcare on a daily basis since the day they were born,” she wrote. “It is up to no one but us to make claims toward their health status. Shame on those who think it’s OK to spread rumors and provoke doubt about something so heart wrenching.”
Though 19-year-old Bella has gone on to have a blossoming career in modeling, Foster revealed that her daughter has already let go of one dream due to her disease.
“Bella had to give up her lifelong dream of having a professional riding career and a shot at the Olympics due to her severe symptoms and inability to ride,” Foster noted. “This was the biggest heartbreak of her life and an extremely sensitive subject for her.”
As I’ve mentioned several times, I had lyme about 12 years now and it was devastating. It’s a disease that’s very poorly understood, is difficult to test for, and affects so many systems of the body so many people and even doctors assume you’re faking. Plus it waxes and wanes so you have days when by outward appearances you’re fine and then the next day you’re laid up exhausted. However I see the other side of it too, because Yolanda is constantly posting sickbed selfies. She wants to raise awareness and she’s a reality star, I get that part, but I also understand the criticism that she’s pushing her illness on her kids. It’s particularly strange that she’s changing her story about the date they were diagnosed.
However, it’s not that much of a stretch to think that her kids could get lyme too especially if they’re active outdoors and/or they have pets bringing ticks into the house. I’m not a social media person and I’m really guarded about all that so my initial response is to tell Yolanda to stop posting selfies from bed. She’s not helping her cause by posting sick photos constantly.
It’s unknown when that photo was taken but Bella seems to be ok now. People can and do recover from lyme so this isn’t evidence that she didn’t/doesn’t have it. She walked in the Chanel show with her sister, Gigi.
photo credit: WENN, Getty and Yolanda Foster/Instagram
The confusion with the dates of diagnosis might be that she recalls them not feeling well & exhibiting symptoms sometime around the earlier date, but received official diagnosis in 2013. She’s also had severely limited brain function herself, which might also have contributed to the confusion.
Yes, it can be a very long road to diagnosis after first approaching a doctor with symptoms. A friend was finally diagnosed only because her husband began to suspect it and pushed for thorough testing.
It’s admirable to raise awareness about an illness that is poorly understood, however it’s crucial to do it the right way. Constantly posting sickbed selfies on Social Media isn’t doing any good except sensationalizing an issue that is serious to a lot of people. I have a cold and I feel like I should live in a cave, to tell me to take a picture right now and post on Instagram about how bad I’m feeling would be the equivalence to ask me to do 500 push-ups and 2000 squats, that’s how drained I feel.
Granted not everyone is going to react the same way about their health, but I could never understand for the life of me why Yolanda takes the time to document her health in such a tabloid fashion. Shame on those who do nothing but bitch about her and casting doubts where there should be none. I really hope Yolanda and her children are okay.
There is a really great blog that breaks down chronic Lyme disease and then the other kind of Lyme disease and it was really informative I can’t look it up now but it’s googleablel and it really is an eye-opener. I’ll post it when I find it again.
I can’t say what’s going on with Yolanda or her kids, but clearly something is not okay over there.
shallow alert: i don’t get how people see gigi, or bella for that matter, as average looking or typical? i think they look like their dad, with yolanda’s colouring, and i think they are just crazy gorgeous. all of them.
as to lymes: i feel for them, and anyone who has to dance with that evil and tricky disease. i also don’t buy into her faking it, or any syndrome.
If you look at old modeling pics of Yolanda, Gigi looks just like her to me. I agree, she and Bella are both just gorgeous. I think Gigi could have more success with commercial modeling though. Bella could be high-fashion since she has a more exotic look.
Bella is striking for sure.
I find Bella beautiful in a very special way. Technically she is not at all perfect and it is obvious she has had a nose job, but somehow I can’t stop looking at her. She has this quiet beauty but is a bombshell at the same time. Don’t know anything about her personality and I try not to find out because that might spoil her mystique for me.
Agree, she is mesmerizingly gorgeoys. I hope she doesn’t continue with anymore cosmetic procedures ir surgeries. Quit while you’re ahead.
I think her mother is full of it. People who are truly seek are not out advertising their misery. She needs to leave her children out of her obvious neurosis.
I am glad that Mohammed shut the issue down like he did. No one should question he or Yolanda on their childrens’ welfare. Perhaps Yolanda has gone overboard in her social media postings, but that doesn’t give someone the right to accuse her of not telling the truth about her condition or her kids’ condition. We saw footage of Bella riding horses several times on the show, it’s very believable she could have contracted Lyme.
I read an interview of Bella Hadid in ES Magazine, where she explained how the disease was affecting her.
You can read it here:
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/bella-hadid-i-still-feel-awkward-taking-a-selfie-sometimes-it-feels-a-little-weird-a3123476.html
She is a great girl, and very courageous too.
poor girl 🙁
Doesn’t one of the Olsen twins have this as well? It seems like a really difficult disease to deal with. Hope you stay well CB
One of the most frustrating things about Lyme disease is that people question whether or not you have it. Even doctors, as Celebitchy said. When my husband asked his doctor for another round of antibiotics after the first one didn’t work (turns out it was the wrong kind) his doctor told him, ok, he would do it, because “sometimes we have to give medicine to patients just to make them feel better, even if they don’t really need it.”
@GNAT, that is enraging. I also had Lyme as a child and suffer from an array of health problems now; I don’t know if they’re related to the Lyme or not, but that a doctor would say something so patronizing to your husband is outrageous. Our doctors should be supporting us and listening to us, not making us feel as if we’re making shit up. Unreal.
My husband has a very thick skin, but it really hurt him. He already felt so lost. As you know, there are all of these awful complications and nobody knows what to do about them. Then to have this jerk act like he was making it up was just too much. I hope you have your health issues under control now? He’s doing pretty well. Obviously, we went to a different doctor.
I just wonder who takes the artfully arranged sick bed shots …. And happy for them that the Lyme disease did not affect Bella’s ability to walk in the Chanel. Wouldn’t that have been inconvenient timing for a flare up …
One of the captions on the photo says “hard work pays off”. What hard work? The girl is 19, just recently decided she wanted to model, and therefore started to model due to her family connections. Give me a break. I honestly cannot take this generation of socialite models.
tbh, regardless of their connections i think both bella and gigi are stunning and would be models anyway. the jenner girl on the other side, is very average looking.
While Lyme can be completely devastating and a life-long ordeal, there are also people like me who got it, went through a round of antibiotics, and was fine in 2 weeks. I haven’t had any long-term effects. Mono was more crippling for me personally. So it’s totally possible the kids have Lyme too, but don’t have to suffer long-term like she does.
The antibiotics only work correctly if you are administered them within a certain amount of time – which doesn’t always happen because Lyme is notoriously difficult to diagnose if someone doesn’t already know they’ve been bitten by a tick. It’s those folks who missed the window of time that have chronic Lyme, which is brutal.
That’s true, Hillshmill, if treated immediately and correctly, it can be cured.
It’s totally possible the children do have lymes. New research is showing the possibility of contacting it thru bodily fluids, as many husbands and wife’s share the disease and obviously didn’t both get bit with ticks carrying the disease. As a parent you kiss, share glasses, etc with your children and this is how the disease could’ve been passed to her children. Any person with the disease should definitely have their spouses and children checked.
It can also be transmitted in utero, and there is more research being conduced on sexual transmissability factors as well. It truly is a devastating disease. Someone REALLY said they “look fine, so they can’t be sick” BS?? Give me a break~MANY diseases don’t show on the outside.
The other part of Mohammed’s statement was that his respect for his children would mean that he would never have discussed his children’s health in public at a restaurant or wherever, which I take it to mean that this discussion never have happened as the setting was way too casual and wouldn’t have been a topic of idle chit-chat.
So it’s too bad that Lisa V. took a private issue about somebody else’s children from what she knew was a private conversation between friends and used it not only to give the producers incentive to give her more camera time but to defame the children’s mother. How would she feel if someone else did this same thing to her and her children? Is everybody fair game to her?
But then again, Mohammed says he wouldn’t have said such things to her in that kind of situation anyways. So did Lisa V. take something out of context to make her scenes more sensational and to hurt Yolanda?
Either way, Lisa V. should have kept her mouth shut and respected the sanctity of what Mohammed would consider a private conversation with a trusted friend.
Everything you wrote. I used to find Lisa V amusing but she’s way out of bounds on this one. She seems oddly focused on undermining Yolanda for some reason – nor is she being a good friend to Mohammed to stir up trouble with his children.
According to the CDC, 90 people were diagnosed in CA with Lyme Disease in the year of 2014. Is it possibly that 3 people in one family could be diagnosed with Lyme? Possible. Probable? Definitely not.
You do realize diseases like this are often under reported and not correctly diagnosed so those numbers don’t mean all that much.
No because Lipreng didn’t say “90 people have Lyme disease” she/he said “90 people were diagnosed in CA with Lyme disease in the year of 2014.” These things are reported to public health offices and the CDC. If a doctor’s diagnosis is Lyme, it’s reported.
@ladysussex I know how it works, so thanks. I’m just offering another perspective. I stand by what I said in the context I responded – which is key. Those reported numbers don’t mean all that much – they don’t show the whole picture. Lipreng was using those numbers to Conclude that Yolanda and her kids don’t have Lyme that’s why I said what I did. Also Drs CAN essentially diagnosis a disease such as Lyme and no it doesn’t always get reported due to other factors – medicine isn’t always straight forward and by the book- not to mention Lyme and other diseases, syndromes and disorders often don’t get diagnosed properly to begin with. So again those numbers are useless but sure in some manner they are correct but again not the context I used. Forming an opinion off of potentially incorrect data isn’t always wise.
Actually these numbers are reported. Lyme disease is considered a reportable disease meaning it is mandatory for the numbers to be reported to officials. Diagnosis codes must be entered for appointments & administering medication. Testing is followed up on. Also, this is a conversation about the diagnosed, which Yolanda & her 2 children supposedly are. Therefore it is irrelevant to bring up the undiagnosed.
Yes, but consider that Yolanda and family travel all over the world. Also I don’t think Lyme is the first thing a doctor will look to test for – the symptoms can also be attributed to other illnesses as well, and can’t be tested for directly in any case, so that’s another factor too.
Having an “invisible” disease is horrible for a number of reasons. While I don’t have Lyme, I do have POTS and a heart and lung condition. Because I am a young woman it took forever for them to correctly diagnosis me and people still don’t get how I can be sick but look just “fine” to them. Some People have a hard time understanding it if they haven’t been through it themselves. However it’s also beyond ignorant for people to assume she’s faking it (or anyone) because she has good days, because she doesn’t seem sick, because her kids also have it or whatever the reason may be. Chronically ill people have good days just like they have bad days and it can change from one to the other in a blink of an eye. I could feel on top of the world one minute and all of a sudden I feel like someone took the wind out of my sails. I feel for Yolanda and her kids. Some of this over posting could be because she just wants to prove to people she is really sick. The biggest battle sometimes is just getting people to listen and believe you. It messes with you mentally because you know how bad you feel yet it seems like no one believes you. While over sharing might not be the best idea, I can see why she may do it.
Yes, on invisible diseases. I have fibromyalgia, which one psychology professor I had introduced the disease as being in ones head. I raised my hand and was happy to tell him that pain is pain. If he meant that my brain was sending pain signals for no reason, then yes, I guess he was right. But that pain is not in my head, thankyouverymuch.
Right on, Wiffie. I was told by a doctor 20 years ago that because I grew up on a farm (and we hicks never talk about our feelings, I guess?), I was mistaking depression for fibromyalgia. Yeah. It was BIZARRE.
Amen. Right after I was diagnosed with Crohn’s 10- years ago, my first counselling appointment ended when the ignorant, insensitive woman looked at me and said “well, if you are going to have a chronic illness, this is the one to get.” I walked out. In my bad days I still wish that she ends up getting it, and see how she likes it.
Unless someone wants to join me in the bathroom 20 times a day, it’s damn invisible. You can’t tell by looking at me how painful and uncomfortable the illness is, how bad the meds side effects are, and so on.
I don’t watch any reality shows so all I know about her is from this site but no matter who and what she is, kudos to her for shining a light on a hard to diagnose, hard to treat (if not caught early), invisible illness.
I’m sorry, vauvert. I had a friend in my younger days with Crohn’s and not only was it very painful, it was so difficult for practical reasons. No wonder you wanted to slap that idiot.
Agreeing with all three comments above this one. I suffer from an invisible disease and the number of people – my own family members! – who think I’m “faking it” because they’ve seen me on rare “good days” is unbelievable.
It’s astounding to me that anyone would think that I would CHOOSE to feel so crappy on a daily basis, and spend so much time in bed, and miss out on so many events and activities. Just mind boggling.
Those housewives can be such heartless wenches. To sit up there and claim someone is faking their health is disgusting to me me We dont know what is going on inside someone else’s body unless they chose to share that info with us. Sure, some people are found to fake illness like Vicki’s dude Bruce but its wise to just let that play out.
She’s kind of like the blonde version of khris jenner lol
If you watch RHOBH, Yolanda has a literal closet full of herbs and supplements that she takes each day–and shares with her kids. It was crazy. Whether they have Lyme or not, it’s worrisome how much she puts in her body (natural doesn’t mean harmless) and that may be contributing to her health. She also started to improve once she had her leaking breasts implants removed. And Yolanda blamed Bella’s underage DUI on her Lyme which was just WTF?