Brandi Glanville, the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, has reemerged in the public eye with a striking show of confidence just days after revealing she finally received a diagnosis for the facial condition that disfigured her face and upended her life for nearly two years.
The moment came in the form of a lighthearted holiday video shared on Instagram on Saturday (December 13), where the 53-year-old danced around her home in red bikini bottoms, a matching red sweater, beige Ugg boots, and a cheetah-print Santa hat, lip-syncing to Wham’s “Last Christmas.”
Highlights
- Brandi Glanville shared a festive Instagram video days after confirming she finally received a diagnosis.
- The former RHOBH star spent nearly two years isolated and drained her savings searching for answers.
- Fans reacted to the upbeat clip as a stark contrast to her long and painful health ordeal.
“This is what happens when @james_maas and I try to put up a tree,” Glanville wrote in the caption, tagging her friend as he briefly appeared in the background wearing a red robe.
The playful clip stood in stark contrast to the prolonged health crisis Glanville has publicly detailed since 2023, one that left her isolated, financially drained, and believing her face was being eaten by parasites.
Former reality TV star Brandi Glanville surprised her fans with a cheerful video after having her facial condition finally diagnosed
Image credits: Getty/Paul Archuleta
Earlier this month, Glanville confirmed she had finally received an official diagnosis for the mysterious condition that caused severe swelling and texture changes in her face.
Speaking to TMZ last Thursday, she described the moment as a breakthrough she had feared might never arrive.
“I have a long road ahead of me to get fully better, but I finally have an answer, so I’m just thrilled,” she said.
Image credits: brandiglanville
Glanville did not disclose the diagnosis itself, explaining that she plans to share those details “soon.” Still, the confirmation alone marked a turning point after two years of unanswered questions and mounting medical bills.
The ordeal began in 2023 after Glanville traveled to Morocco to film The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Ex-Wives Club 2.
Shortly afterward, her face began swelling in ways doctors initially dismissed or failed to explain.
Image credits: brandiglanville
Convinced something was deeply wrong, Glanville became fixated on the belief that a parasite was living in her face.
In a 2024 interview with Entertainment Tonight, she described sensations of bubbles “forming and bursting” in her cheeks and chin, saying she believed the parasite was “having babies in [her] face.”
Image credits: brandiglanville
She soon panicked, as she started experiencing symptoms no one could explain.
“I have chills and a constant oily foul tasting drainage from face into mouth. It’s acidic and is eating away at my teeth,” she wrote online, adding that her lymph nodes were swollen while doctors continued telling her she was fine.
In her desperation, Glanville tried eliminating the “parasite” by burning her face with Nair hair cream
Image credits: brandiglanville
As the months passed, the condition reshaped every aspect of Glanville’s life. She has said she spent more than $130,000 on doctors, tests, and treatments, ultimately exhausting her savings in the process.
“It’s been hell. I’ve turned into an introvert. Leaving my house, I get the worst anxiety because I’ve been in my house for two years,” she told TMZ.
Image credits: brandiglanville
In August, she opened up to Us Weekly about the financial and professional fallout.
“At my age, I feel like such a l*ser in a way, because I was taking care of everything,” she said. “I was together. I had great credit. Now I’m scared about every little thing.”
Image credits: Getty/MEGA
Her desperation eventually pushed her toward a dangerous self-treatment. After dissolving all the filler in her face in December 2024 with no improvement, Glanville attempted an unsupervised at-home solution.
Believing it would damage the alleged parasite, she applied Nair hair-removal cream directly to her skin.
She later appeared in a TikTok video with the lower half of her face severely swollen and red, almost as if it had been burned. “I know I look attractive,” she said sarcastically, admitting she left the product on for seven minutes.
“I’ve been on meds this whole year. I don’t socialize. I don’t go out,” she said at the time. “I’ve just been spending all my money on trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.”
An immunology specialist contacted her after reading about her case on X
Image credits: usweekly
Medical professionals increasingly challenged her parasite theory. In January 2025, plastic surgeon Dr. Terry Dubrow publicly suggested her symptoms were more consistent with an infectious process or a foreign body reaction linked to past facial injections.
“There are these two kinds of microorganisms, one’s called a Microbacterium and the other is called a fungus,” Dubrow explained. “They can be very difficult to treat and could take six to 12 months of antibiotics.”
A turning point came mid-2024, when Glanville began working with Dr. Michael R. Scoma, an infectious disease and immunology specialist in New York.
Scoma reached out after seeing her distressed posts online, offering the expertise she said she had been desperately searching for.
By mid-August, Glanville shared a photo from his office showing visible improvement in her face.
“They say Twitter is the devil but all it took was me screaming in my tweets asking for help for this lovely man to reach out,” she wrote, even joking that she was excited to “make out” with someone once she healed fully.
"Scared." Brandi's fans have spent the last two years fearing for her safety
