Reality Check: Lexi Young of 'Bachelor' reveals she went to ER during series
“The Bachelor” season 28 contestant Lexi Young revealed a medical complication sent her to the ER during the show's production. Credit: Disney / Richard Middlesworth
FOREVER YOUNG “The Bachelor” contestant Lexi Young, who previously explained it was her endometriosis that had caused her to leave that ABC dating competition on the Feb. 19 episode, has now revealed the disease sent her to the emergency room while the season was being produced.
“I actually ended up going to the UCLA hospital while I was on the show,” Young, 30, told People magazine, referring to the Los Angeles university’s medical center. “I had an ovarian cyst burst because I froze my eggs two weeks before going on the show. And so my ovaries were so enlarged from all the hormones that they hadn't come back down yet.”
She added that the show’s producers were solicitous and caring, and that while dealing with her disease — in which tissue normally inside the uterus grows outside it — proved particularly difficult because of the traveling required for the show, “I’m just very headstrong and I powered through it.”
Young went on to say that her condition was misdiagnosed throughout most of her life. It was not until 2019 and moving from San Francisco to New York City, she said, that a doctor finally diagnosed her as having stage 4 endometriosis that had spread to her lungs.
“I felt validated for the first time in over a decade,” she said. “I felt like I actually had a doctor that was listening to me and that my pain was real. I just remember I was so emotional, I burst into tears.”
Young still experiences frequent flare-ups of the disease. When they occur, “My abdomen is swollen, and it feels like my ovaries are covered in barbed wire. It's just so painful.”
She went on to say, “I am managing the pain through hormone therapy [and] physical therapy. I watch my diet, but it's an everyday thing that I deal with.”
‘GOLDEN’ EARS “The Golden Bachelor” continues to reverberate as a hit, with Warner Bros. Unscripted Television, a producer of the “Bachelor” franchise, announcing that a spinoff podcast debuts Thursday: “Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour.”
Hosting are Kathy Swarts and Susan Noles, two contestants from the inaugural season last year of the seniors-oriented dating competition. “We will be sharing some of OUR life lessons with some humor and asking listeners to dish on what’s going on in their lives. Nothing surprises us!” said the two in a joint statement.
The new weekly podcast is a spinoff of “Bachelor Happy Hour,” hosted by “Bachelor In Paradise” season 7 couple Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt, who wed last year.
FINALE As if there’s not enough “Bachelor” news, season 28 of the flagship show airs its live finale Monday starting at 8 p.m. on ABC. Kelsey Anderson and Daisy Kent are the last two standing.
PREMIERE Early Friday on the streaming service Netflix, “Saturday Night Live” star Mikey Day returns to host season 3 of “Is It Cake?,” in which master bakers create confections disguised as hyper-realistic other objects to fool a series of judges including actor-comedians Jillian Bell, Lauren Lapkus and Oscar Nuñez and “SNL” veterans Jay Pharoah, Chris Kattan, Taran Killam and Ego Nwodim.
RECAPS The father-daughter team of Chris Foster and Mary Cardona-Foster is the second to be eliminated on “The Amazing Race” … and “Survivor” voted off Bhanu Gopal.
