Made In Chelsea star Sam Vanderpump has opened up about his struggles with health anxiety following a serious bout of sepsis. The television personality and entrepreneur was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in December 2024, suffering from sepsis that resulted in liver and kidney failure due to flu.
This harrowing experience, during which he lost around 15kg, prompted him to propose to model Alice Yaxley in March. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Vanderpump recalled his initial hospital visit in December: “They discharged me, and then I got an asthma attack, and they said I had this back pain due to the asthma attack”, but the doctors were unable to diagnose his condition.
He described how he was out shopping in London when he began feeling “dehydrated”, and by the next day, his condition had deteriorated significantly: “Got so bad, I had crusty lips. I was being delirious… she (my fiancee) went, ‘I’ve got to get you into hospital'”.
He continued, expressing the shock of his rapid decline: “From 24 hours before I was shopping in Selfridges, to 24 hours later, where the doctors were telling me I was going into liver and kidney failure”. Despite regaining physical strength and managing to put on nearly 10kg after losing 15kg during his illness, Vanderpump admitted that the mental aftermath of sepsis has been challenging.
He said: “I think (the) mental terms are very, very hard to deal with, the mental side of post-sepsis and being able to get back into normality, because you look fine on the outside, everyone else’s lives go back to normal. But (you are) dealing with (a) kind of health anxiety.”
Vanderpump, who suffers from the rare conditions congenital hepatic fibrosis of the liver and polycystic kidney disease, emphasised the importance of vigilance concerning symptoms like high temperature; a concern that hit close to home when his partner, Yaxley, fell ill. He relayed: “My girlfriend, fiancee, got an infection recently where she’s got a high temperature, and I’m rushing her to go see a doctor, because I just want to get her treated,”.
He also advised that if people experience “normal symptoms like the flu, breathlessness, just a little bit of aches and pains, high temperature”, they should not hesitate to visit a GP and discuss the possibility of sepsis. Vanderpump has taken on the role of ambassador for the UK Sepsis Trust, highlighting the severity of the condition; the charity states that it leads to “nearly 80,000 people each year (to) suffer life-changing after-effects in the UK, with 82% of sepsis survivors experiencing post-sepsis syndrome more than a year after hospital discharge, and 18% left permanently unable to work”.
The reality TV personality, who first appeared on Channel 4’s Made In Chelsea last year, is also an entrepreneur with finance companies in the UK and Dubai and has a background in motor racing. He is notably related to Lisa Vanderpump, famed for The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills and her subsequent spin-off shows, including Vanderpump Rules.
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