Brandi Glanville feared she'd be left with 'giant pumpkin head' due to stress-related illness
Brandi Glanville was left with a "giant pumpkin head" and struggled to speak due to a stress-related condition that caused her face to swell.
Brandi Glanville was left with a "giant pumpkin head" and struggled to speak due to a stress-related condition.
The former 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star's face and lips swelled unexpectedly in August, accompanied by anaphylactic shock, and her health continued to deteriorate, leaving her hospitalised in October and ultimately diagnosed with angioedema, a swelling in the deep layers of skin and other tissues, which she attributed to the turmoil of filming 'The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip'.
Speaking to 'Entertainment Tonight' about the "worst year of [her] life", she told 'Entertainment Tonight': "I've had some health issues that have affected my ability to talk. My ability to taste food, my face basically would swell up, like I would have anaphylactic shock, go into anaphylactic shock constantly and I saw 7 doctors and their answer to it was it was stress-induced angioedema."
Brandi regrets having taken her "health for granted" and feared she'd never "feel the same again".
She said: "I just want to be healthy. I have taken my health for granted.
"I cried on my birthday. It was on November 16th. I cried the whole night and I thought that was my new normal. I was just never gonna look the same or feel the same. I was just gonna be this giant pumpkin head and like my mouth even now I get tired of talking. So I didn't do my podcast for several months because I would just have to stop and take breaks. It's insane. I took my health for granted."
The 51-year-old former model believes the condition was sparked by the stress of accusations made by 'Real Housewives of New Jersey' star Caroline Manzo, who alleged sexual misconduct including groping during the filming of 'The Ultimate Girls Trip in Morocco', which led to Brandi being removed from the show, though she has denied the allegations.
Brandi has since hired a legal team and accused producers of fostering an unsafe working environment by encouraging excessive drinking.
While she insisted she had been advised not to speak about the incident, which wasn't caught on camera, Brandi described the shows as "the wild west".
She said: "I think the Girls Trips shows are the wild west. They don't know what their doing yet. We can't work 19-hour days and be fuelled with alcohol all day.
"No, they don't force you but they want you to and you want to please the producers. I think that you know when we're all exhausted and we're doing 20 events a day working 19 hours, fully wasted it's not a safe environment for any of us and that's what the 'Girls Trips' are."
Peacock had no comment on her claims.
