Tragic Details About Yolanda Hadid
While a Bravo Housewife's life may seem glamorous, not everything is as it seems once the cameras stop rolling. Former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Yolanda Hadid joined the show in its third season, dealing with some of her most personal struggles on camera before leaving the show three years later. Her chronic battle with Lyme disease, the breakdown of her marriage with David Foster, and the criticism she endured while raising her daughters Gigi and Bella just scratched the surface when it came to the obstacles she's overcome in the spotlight.
Due to her public platform, Yolanda has been extremely open and honest about her personal life, even after leaving the "RHOBH" franchise. Not all press may be good press, however, as the mother of three has come to find out. She's been attacked for putting her life on display, and a TikTok video dubbed "5 Reasons Why Everyone Hates Yolanda Hadid" went viral in 2023, calling into question how she raises her children and accusing her of toxic behavior. Some examples included over-restricting her children's diets and even favoring one child over the other, both of which she responded by jokingly dubbing herself the "#Worstmomever" in a sarcastic TikTok video.
Sarcastic humor may help, but it certainly can't solve all the obstacles (past and present) that the model-turned-reality star has endured over the years. While she may have a hefty $45 million fortune, she's paid her dues in hardships. Here's a look at the tragic details of Yolanda Hadid.
Yolanda Hadid was diagnosed with Lyme disease
During Season 1 of the "RHOBH," Yolanda Hadid got some life-changing news. The former model discovered she had Lyme disease, a type of bacterial infection spread to humans after being bitten by a deer tick, according to Penn Medicine. As per the CDC, 5% to 10% of cases can have chronic effects, ones Hadid has been battling ever since she was diagnosed over a decade ago in 2012. "I kind of stayed on [the show] because I thought, 'OK, I'll be better next season.' I didn't know Lyme disease was a life sentence. And now, here we are 10, 12 years, later I'm still struggling with it," she told People.
There is no cure for chronic Lyme disease, and symptoms can include brain fog, tiredness, anxiety, headaches, and muscle soreness. All of which Hadid admitted to experiencing before she was diagnosed. She called her journey with the disease an "absolute nightmare" in her Vogue interview, revealing she can't pinpoint a time or place she contracted the condition but spent a lot of her time growing up on a farm. "I fought tooth and nail to keep things together in front of my family and friends, but as things got progressively worse, there was no hiding from the truth anymore," she recalled of finding out her condition.
Hadid is finding the positive in her diagnosis, however, and hopes to spread awareness of what she calls her "invisible disability." "By sharing the more uncomfortable parts of our lives, we have the power to raise awareness," she shared.
Hadid discovered several other health issues after getting treatment for Lyme disease
Besides chronic Lyme disease, Yolanda Hadid has had several issues with her health throughout the years. The Dutch native debuted her memoir "Believe Me: My Battle with the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease" in 2017, which shone a light on not just Lyme disease but the many other conditions she suffered from stemming from childhood. In the book, as noted by Entertainment Tonight, Hadid revealed she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus when she was 13 years old. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition is a common viral infection that spreads through saliva and permanently remains in your body in a dormant state after it's contracted.
Later, in 2012, after receiving the news that she had contracted Lyme disease, Yolanda Hadid wasn't out of the woods yet. Doctors determined that the former model had metal poisoning, bacterial infections, and loose silicone which had spread to her lymph nodes, as per Entertainment Tonight. The latter was caused by her breast implants, which she later removed during a "RHOBH" episode. She took to Instagram to celebrate in 2019, writing, "Living in a body free of breast implants, fillers, Botox, extensions and all the bulls*** I thought I needed in order to keep up with what society conditioned me to believe what a sexy woman should look like until the toxicity of it all almost killed me ..." The reality star also revealed in her memoir that she previously had intestinal parasites removed, which were found during a colonic procedure while undergoing treatment for her Lyme disease.
She was accused of potentially having Munchausen's syndrome
During Season 6 of the "RHOBH," the word on everyone's mind seemed to be "Munchausen's." The word refers to a mental condition in which someone "pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of illness in themselves," according to its definition by NHS. In the case of the Beverly Hills Housewives, Yolanda Hadid was accused of having Munchausen's syndrome by her then-cast-mate Lisa Rinna, who alleged that she may have been faking her Lyme disease at the time.
"I feel that Yolanda's posts on Instagram can be confusing because one minute she's in a hospital bed with needles in her arm and then another post not long after she's on a yacht looking like she's having a great time," Rinna said in a clip from an episode aired in 2016. She went on to read a description of Munchausen's syndrome off her phone to Lias Vanderpump and Kyle Richards, saying, "I feel like I have to just purge myself of the fact that I even questioned it."
Rinna eventually apologized to Hadid for suggesting she may be falsifying her illness, but the damage had already taken a toll. She spoke about the incident in her memoir, writing (per RadarOnline), "I hear that the women use the word 'Munchausen's' in relation to my illness during filming," she added. "That is such a hurtful word, it infuriates me. Why would anyone make such a distorted and untrue statement related to my health journey? Especially in front of my friends and millions of viewers?"
The Internet thinks she's a bad mother
Yolanda Hadid's parenting style often came into question while she starred on the "RHOBH," especially when it came to her daughter Gigi's eating habits. In a video clip from Season 4 of the show, Gigi calls her mother, telling her, "I'm feeling really weak, I had like, half an almond." Yolanda then tells her daughter, "Have a couple of almonds and chew them really well," noting that it might help her stomach.
The short phone call became a hugely contested topic, with many fans believing that the mother of three placed unhealthy restrictions on her daughters to further their modeling careers. One video compilation on YouTube shines a light on even more controversial remarks to Gigi, dubbed "Yolanda Hadid Telling Gigi Not to Eat for 2 Minutes Straight." In the clip, the reality star notes her desire for her daughters to stop practicing volleyball due to the "masculine" body shape she believes it creates. "Their bodies are big and bulky and they eat like men," she said in a confessional, adding, "I wanted her to develop as a woman."
The video also showed Yolanda controlling Gigi's cake intake at her birthday party. "No that's too big. Half of that," she tells Gigi while she is seen cutting herself a slice. She proceeds to tear off a bite-sized piece for her daughter, saying, "You know what Gigi I think that's enough." Users weighed in in the comments section, with one writing, "Imagine not being able to eat YOUR OWN BIRTHDAY CAKE."
Her marriage to David Foster cracked under pressure
Yolanda Hadid's relationship with David Foster was a focal point during "RHOBH" until their marriage reached a breaking point in 2015. The couple met through Hadid's ex-husband Mohamed, with whom she shares Gigi, Bella, and her son Anwar. After tying the knot in 2011, viewers got an inside look into their home life, with many fans rooting for the couple each season.
Things got worse in 2012, however, when Yolanda's Lyme disease diagnosis put a strain on her marriage. Her chronic illness, combined with the pressure of filming, as well as Foster's career as a record producer and musician, ultimately proved too much to bear. In Yolanda's memoir "Believe Me" (per Mirror), she mentioned Foster telling her, "Your sick card is up" as they grew further and further apart. They eventually split in 2015, finalizing their divorce two years later.
While fans have speculated that Yolanda's sickness led to the breakup, Foster has remained tight-lipped. "How can I leave a sick woman?" he said in his Netflix documentary "David Foster: Off the Record (via People). "The fact of the matter is that was not the reason I left. It was for a different reason — which I will never disclose — that had nothing to do with her being sick." As for Yolanda, she noticed cracks three years into the marriage after Foster declined to vacation with her to Bali. "How do I all of a sudden feel trapped by the most quality human being in my life?" she wrote in her memoir (via Entertainment Tonight).
She was forced to sell her Malibu home after feeling 'trapped'
Yolanda Hadid sold her gorgeous Malibu home in 2019 for $19 million, leaving with it the memories of her children's childhood and her marriage with David Foster. Fans grew to love the home while she filmed in it on the "RHOBH," which included a floor-to-ceiling glass refrigerator, a recording studio, and a basement screening room. Ultimately, after splitting with Foster, the mansion proved too much of a task to take on alone.
"Its magnitude and the overwhelming responsibilities that come with running it are more than I can handle," she wrote in her memoir (via Entertainment Tonight). "We have help, but I'm still in charge of it all. The beautiful lemon orchard and rose gardens that I used to love tending to are not monsters of pressure. Not only do I feel trapped in my brain, I also feel trapped in this big, beautiful house."
Hadid bought a Los Angeles condo in 2016 for around $4.5 million, which featured three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a pool, a gym, and even a private elevator. In 2017, she bought a farm in Pennsylvania, where she has increasingly spent more and more time after leaving the Housewives franchise. Hadid and her daughters Gigi and Bella are often seen together on the $4 million estate, posting Instagram photos alongside the many cows and horses that Yolanda has acquired on the land. "I've gone through the seasons with the trees and saw the blossoms coming and going," she told BravoTV.com in 2020. "For that, it's been incredible."
Her letter to Bella following her DUI arrest was shared online
Yolanda Hadid received some heartbreaking news in 2014 after she got a call that her daughter had been driving under the influence. Bella, who was 17 at the time, was charged with a DUI after running through a stop sign and nearly crashing into an LA County Sheriff's Department patrol car on the Pacific Coast Highway, as per TMZ. On top of engaging in underage drinking, Bella tested for nearly double the legal limit and was driving on a suspended license. She was later taken into custody and released after David Foster bailed her out.
Yolanda, who lost her own father to a car accident when she was just 7 years old, took the news extremely hard. "I decided to take her phone away, make her pay for her own lawyer bills from her savings, and we sold her car," Yolanda wrote on her Bravo blog. She also noted that her daughter received a one-year license suspension, six months probation, and hours of community service and AA meetings following the ordeal.
The reality star mentioned in her blog that she wrote her daughter "the longest letter I have ever written" at the time, which some Internet sleuths claimed to have since found. In the alleged letter to Bella, reposted to X (formerly Twitter), she reportedly calls Bella a "spoiled, unthankful, unthoughtful, careless human being" and claims to have found bloody underwear, dirty tampons, as well as "pink kittie bottles with vodka" and "bottles with Adderall [and] Vyvanse among the contents in Bella's former car.
Hadid had suicidal thoughts several times amid her health battles
Yolanda Hadid's long journey with chronic Lyme disease wreaked havoc on her life, and the reality star admitted to losing her will to live multiple times since her diagnosis. In her memoir "Believe Me," she detailed the instances when her pain seemed too much to bear, recalling one instance where she had suicidal thoughts while on vacation with her then-husband, David Foster, in Florida.
"'God please just take me away in a wave. I can't live like this one more day,'" she recalled thinking, in part of a passage from her book (per People). "Please carry my body away. I just want to disappear,'" she shared. "My next thought is a clear image of my three children. It shifts my consciousness immediately and that's the only thing that keeps me from letting myself drift and drown."
In the memoir, Hadid admitted she wished for death upon herself at least three times, but she eventually got control of her life again. By 2019, the mother of three was in remission and had a huge wake-up call on the important things in life. "I have had it all and lost it all, only to realize that less is more, money can't buy you health or happiness, and one day at a time is good enough," she wrote (per People). While Hadid continues to hope for a cure, she is enjoying her days of good health. "Being in remission is a blessing I cherish every day," she revealed in her Vogue interview.
Zayn Malik allegedly shoved her into a dresser in a shocking harassment suit
Zayn Malik wasn't exactly gaining his potential mother-in-law Yolanda Hadid's approval when news broke that he got into a physical altercation with her in 2021. TMZ detailed the incident, reporting that the singer had allegedly grown uncomfortable with Hadid's increasing visits to Gigi's home, where her then-boyfriend Malik had been staying. He also reportedly didn't appreciate the reality star posting photos of his and Gigi's young child, Khai, on social media.
The tension reportedly blew up in a physical fight, one in which Yolanda claimed the former One Direction bandmate pushed her into a dresser over an argument. The "Pillowtalk" singer pleaded no contest to four counts of harassment following the altercation, as well as charges for harassing Gigi (who was away in Paris at the time) and a security guard at the scene.
Malik denied hitting Yolanda in a statement following the news but admitted on X (via BBC) that he had exchanged "harsh words" following "an argument with a family member of my partner's." The singer and Gigi broke up not long after the incident, and Yolanda has remained quiet about the controversy in the press. In 2023, when asked about the controversy in a "Call Her Daddy" interview, he said, "I knew what happened, and the people involved knew what happened too, and that's all I really cared about," adding, "If something happens in the family, I'd rather keep that between the family, you don't need a whole audience of people."
Hadid struggled with depression following her mother's death
Yolanda Hadid announced the heartbreaking news of her mother, Ans van den Herik's passing in 2019, sharing a sweet tribute to her mother on Instagram. "I can not imagine this life without you but I pray that I will hear you whisper in the tallest trees and feel your love in the gentle breeze," she wrote in the post. Herik lost her battle with cancer at 78 years old, according to Metro.
Following the news of her mother's passing, the "RHOBH" star took some much-needed time off social media to deal with her mental health. "After the loss of my mother I really struggled with depression followed by a lyme relapse," she wrote in an Instagram post in 2022. "The emotional stress and grief strongly effected [sic] my immune system."
Yolanda noted that she felt a disconnect with others after spending too much time on her phone, revealing she's working towards breaking her unhealthy dependence on her phone. "I realized that we are slowly starting to lose the art of communication and it's creating a deep loneliness within us," she wrote. After celebrating her nine-month social media cleanse, the former model wrote that she found more "time to reconnect with people, be creative and most importantly time with my family."