Brandi Glanville broke down in tears on her podcast while discussing a GoFundMe her friend started to cover her mounting medical bills.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum, 53, became emotional during Friday’s episode of “Brandi Glanville Unfiltered” as she explained why she finally accepted outside help. She told co-host James Maas that she feels deeply uncomfortable with the arrangement.
“I’m embarrassed, honestly, because I don’t like to ask for help,” Glanville said on the show. “I never thought I would do this,” She added that her friend Gina Rodriguez had pushed her into it, telling her, “You have no choice.”
The financial pressure is severe and constant. Glanville said she is paying $7,000 a week in medical expenses even though she carries insurance. Creditors call her throughout the day, and she warned that any pause in payments could cut off her medication and stop her progress entirely. She described herself as “spent in every way.”
Maas pushed back hard against her shame. “It’s not embarrassing,” he told her. “What’s embarrassing is the whole medical system… You need a GoFundMe.”
Glanville’s medical crisis stretches back years and involves a shifting, alarming set of diagnoses. She recently revealed she is battling “highly resistant ESBL Klebsiella and Enterobacter with biofilm, Coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever), Demodex dermatitis and mononucleosis.” She also has a fungal ball in her face that she is preparing to have surgically removed.
The situation grew more disturbing in recent weeks. Glanville posted footage on Instagram of an ultrasound examination where her doctor spotted something alive and moving beneath her skin. “If I don’t find a doctor to cut this out of my face, I’m just going to do it myself,” she said in the video.
Her appearance first drew widespread attention in 2024, when she publicly blamed Bravo for her facial disfigurement and said the condition had destroyed her ability to work. She posted at the time that stress from the network had left her “miserable” and “depressed,” adding: “I’m not even going to share the picture of when it sinks in. Stress will kill you. How is your wealth? Take care of yourself, people. Thank you, Bravo. I couldn’t even work if I wanted to at this point.”
That same year, medical opinions on her condition were split. Some professionals believed she had a parasite that was “jump[ing] around [her] face,” while others diagnosed “stress-induced edema.”
In February, Glanville identified another source of her problems: 20-year-old ruptured breast implants that had leaked silicone into her lymph nodes. She later learned she had developed a benign facial tumor in one of those lymph nodes.
Through it all, Glanville has maintained she does not want anyone to see the fundraising page, even as she acknowledged she has run out of options.
Glanville continues to release new episodes of “Brandi Glanville Unfiltered.”