Just a year after the two married, Hadid was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She blamed it for the couple's divorce.
When Yolanda Hadid and David Foster got married in 2011, it was like a match made in heaven, and their relationship sailed smoothly. Though they were opposites in a lot of ways, they were a perfect couple of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. However, they shocked their fans when they announced their divorce.
It turns out not only were the fans and castmates surprised by the sudden divorce news, even Hadid wasn't prepared for it. The 57-year-old wrote in her memoir Believe Me: My Battle with the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease that the music producer left her the day after his birthday. She detailed how the couple went for a romantic dinner to celebrate but the following morning Foster was in a bad mood, reported Radar Online.
When she called him up to ask if he wanted anything special for the night, he replied, “'No. I’m going out with my daughters. And we need to talk,’ David replies in a tone so cold that shivers run through my body. ’Are you okay?’ I ask. He mumbles an answer, then quickly ends the conversation.” She immediately knew that something "bad" was about to happen. When she asked him what the problem was, all he said was, “'I can’t do this anymore,’ he says briskly. ‘But we’ll discuss it tonight.’”
Just one week before their anniversary she tried reaching out to him one last time but all she received was ignorance. The last time they met, he came to get his clothes and told her that he had enough of everything because her "sick card is up." A week later she received a letter from the lawyer.
Hadid blamed Lyme disease for her divorce from Foster because right when she was starting a new life with him, she was diagnosed in 2012 with her condition. According to People, her fatigue, joint pain, and insomnia got so severe that she couldn't even walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.
“All of a sudden all of the things we shared, all of the things we used to love to do together, go for walks in the morning, having a studio in the house and blasting music all day, having dinner parties, that all shutdown. I couldn’t participate in that life anymore,” she revealed.
She felt that Foster was "unhappy with the fact that I can’t be by his side the way that I used to be,” she wrote in her book. “I try to make light of it and joke that he married a lemon. It’s sad but true. I went from being the funny girlfriend who was up for anything and had endless energy to the wife who is too sick to be by his side.”
The couple split in December 2015. Even though Hadid loved working on RHOBH, Foster completely despised it. In 2019, he told the Los Angeles Times, "The Beverly Hills Housewives was just kind of a nightmare for me and something that I really wish I hadn't been part of. I wanted to say, 'I've got 16 Grammys, b****!' But I didn't." He hated being labeled as an RHOBH husband.
A source told Page Six that Foster felt that "everything was about her. David thinks everything revolves around her and her illness. It’s become the biggest narrative of her show." Another source told Us Weekly, "David and his family think Yolanda just loves the attention of being sick. They believe she's exaggerating her condition. And they point out that she's never gotten a legit diagnosis or a second or third opinion."
However, the music producer dismissed all the claims and told Us Weekly, "I have always had and continue to have the utmost respect and love for Yolanda, which is why it is so frustrating to see headlines questioning her chronic debilitating illness."
In his documentary, David Foster: Off the Record, he said, "How can I leave a sick woman? The fact of the matter is, that is not the reason why I left. It was for a different reason, which I will never disclose, but it had nothing to do with her being sick," as per Us Weekly.
References:
https://radaronline.com/videos/yolanda-hadid-divorce-david-foster-dumped-birthday-phone-call/
https://pagesix.com/2015/12/03/lyme-disease-to-blame-in-yolanda-and-david-fosters-split/
Cover image source: Getty Images | Photos by (L) Dimitrios Kambouris, (R) Alberto E. Rodriguez
