Lisa Rinna's Daughter Amelia Gray Hamlin, 17, Admits She'll 'Never' Be Over Her Eating Disorder
Tuesday’s episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was particularly emotional for Lisa Rinna‘s 17-year-old daughter Amelia Gray Hamlin.
The model got candid about her ongoing battle with anorexia and admitted to her mother that her struggle with the eating disorder got so bad that at one point, she “could have died.”
“No matter how many deaths anorexia causes, no matter how much blindness, no matter how much hair loss, all I cared about was the skinniness,” Amelia confessed. “It’s hard.”
“I hope people in the entertainment industry can stop putting up this facade of being perfect because we all have s—. Probably we’re all way worse than everyone else,” she added. “Literally, every single one of my friends, and I’m sure every single one of your friends, they think about how many calories they’re consuming in a day. When they sit down for a meal, they look at the bread basket and they think, ‘Holy s—.’ “
RELATED: Lisa Rinna’s Daughter Amelia Gray Hamlin Reveals Former Struggle with an Eating Disorder
Amelia — whose father is Harry Hamlin — had first gone public with her personal battle in April, penning a lengthy Instagram message beside two bikini photos of herself: one from 2017 and another taken shortly before her posting.
She explained in that post that her eating disorder was connected to problems she was experiencing with her mental health at the time, but didn’t know how to address it. Eventually, she decided to stop “sabotaging” her health and seek help, learning to “try to love myself for me.”
Though she said in her Instagram post that she has “health complications” from her eating disorder, Amelia noted that she was doing much better. Still, she told her mom on Tuesday’s RHOBH that this was a battle she was likely to never be over.
“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to other people …,” Amelia said. “There’s so much that I need to say about anorexia because I get so many girls commenting like, ‘Help me, I can’t believe you got out of it. How did you do this?’ But I’m not out of it. I’m never going to be out of it.”
Rinna, 55, said on the episode that she saw the signs at the time, pointing out Amelia’s thin frame and questionable behavior.
“You could see it,” said the actress, who is also mother to 20-year-old model Delilah Belle Hamlin. “Amelia started watching food shows. And I thought, That is the weirdest f—ing thing ever, why would you want to watch people eat?“
“My response to her at first was, ‘You got to eat,’ ” she recalled. “And of course that scared the s— out of me. I know it scared the s— out of Harry. I know it scared the s— out of Delilah. … It’s a very scary thing when your child is suffering. You feel totally helpless.”
Ultimately, the Beverly Hills Housewife — who said that her own thin frame had caused people to question whether she had anorexia in the past, which she didn’t — said that she was proud of her daughter for coming forward with her story.
“She came out to the world — I was shocked, I was beyond proud,” Rinna said of Amelia. “She showed something that most people would never admit to, never show. A vulnerability that was so fragile.”
RELATED: Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave Opens Up About Her Weight Struggles & Her Famous Dad
Amelia wasn’t the only one opening up about her past struggles with an eating disorder on Tuesday’s RHOBH. Housewife Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave also got honest about the years-long battle with her weight.
For Mellencamp Arroyave, it began when she first moved to Los Angeles in her early 20s and attempted a career in acting. She nearly booked a part, but was told that her hiring would be contingent on her having to lose weight.
Rather than try to drop the pounds, Mellencamp Arroyave went in the opposite direction — she got to more than 200 lbs. She eventually quit acting.
“I was like, ‘I’m never doing this again,’ ” Mellencamp Arroyave recalled. “It just took such a negative turn, like, ‘This is me. Take me or leave me.’ And then I developed a whole problem where food was my best friend and all I cared about. It went on for years.”
Rinna was a sympathetic ear. “We all have issues with our bodies,” she said. “In this business, you have to look a certain way. That’s the truth.”
Despite all the hardships, Rinna was hopeful that she and Harry had put Amelia and Delilah on the right path.
“To watch my young girls go into that business and to see some brutalities in that business that I’ve now seen? I don’t want that to be the only thing that my girls focus on,” Rinna said. “I think Harry and I have shown her that there’s more out there.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Tuesdays (9 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.