At long last, Brandi Glanville is receiving answers to her years-long health struggle.
Glanville, 53, told TMZ in an interview published on Friday, December 5, that she received an official diagnosis the day prior, on Thursday, December 4. The reality star spoke to the outlet at the opening of goGLOW (a spray tanning service) in Sherman Oaks, California.
Glanville didn’t reveal the exact condition she has, but told the outlet “her mother started bawling” when she heard the news.
“Brandi says the multi-year saga with her face turned her into an introvert and created a lot of dark thoughts,” TMZ also wrote, “which is why her mom was so relieved Brandi had gotten to the bottom of the great facial mystery.”
In August 2025, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum exclusively told Us Weekly she’d “randomly” met “infectious disease doctor” Dr. Michael Scoma online, hopeful he would be able to help her.
“He specializes in super hard to treat things where people can’t get a diagnosis,” Glanville explained to Us at the time. The first course in her treatment was planned to be “IV antibiotics and fungal medications” through a PICC line in Glanville’s arm. (Per the Mayo Clinic, a PICC line, or peripherally inserted central catheter, is “a long, thin tube that’s inserted through a vein in the arm” and the tube is “passed through to the larger veins near the heart.”)
Glanville also admitted that it’s been challenging to keep her spirits up as she’s struggled to get answers and find an adequate treatment for her mystery illness.
“I always joke my life is like The Last of Us? I’m just turning into one of those black mold people,” Glanville said. “That’s how I felt. I have lumps on my face and they’re moving around.”
She continued, “Dr Michael Scoma said he wouldn’t know if there was a parasite or not, because he didn’t treat me early on. But if there was, it would have been gone by no. A lot of this infection, in this deep tissue — the staph infection, and there’s other problems happening — it mimics a parasite. It has this fluid that jumps around your face because it’s spreading.”
Brandi Glanville diagnosis Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
Though the infection began on her face, Glanville also revealed it had since spread to her shoulder, collarbone, neck and left arm. “I spent two years being told there was really not anything wrong with me,” she said.
Glanville first noticed the possible parasite after returning from a trip to Morocco in January 2023. “It’s definitely calmed down since I was treated for the parasite, but now I’m left with [an] infection in my skin,” she told Us, adding that “fluid” often leaked out of her ear and her face has become “all sunken in.”
Scoma also told Us he has a strict plan for Glanville to follow.
“Right now, our focus is on treating Brandi’s long-standing infection and its secondary effects,” Scoma said. “Once the infection is fully controlled and she’s stable, we can evaluate any next steps to support her recovery.”
He added that the hope was to see “meaningful progress within the next few weeks” as long as Glanville followed “treatment protocols closely.”
Before she connected with Scoma, Glanville said she had seen 21 doctors in search of answers. Though some have insisted the damage to her face is actually due to “old filler,” Glanville has argued otherwise.
“The doctor actually said my skin should regenerate quite a bit — not as much as I would like — because they did dissolve so much,” Glanville acknowledged. “But it’s going to be at least a year before I can do anything cosmetic, and I won’t ever get an injection again.”
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