Made In Chelsea star Sam Vanderpump has revealed the “important” signs of sepsis that he missed before “nearly dying”.
The TV personality and businessman was taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in December 2024 after liver and kidney failure caused by flu triggered life-threatening sepsis.
The 27-year-old nephew of Real Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump lost more than two stone and said the experience inspired him to propose in March to model Alice Yaxley.
During Vanderpump’s appearance on ITV's Good Morning Britain, host Rob Rinder asked: “What were the signs of sepsis that you missed at the beginning that are so important for us to understand?
Vanderpump explained: “So it was dehydration that was the biggest thing, to the point where my lips were so dry they had become crusty.
“The fact that I had this back pain which just was not disappearing and the high fever. The biggest signs I've had since, on reinfection, which alerted me to it very quickly before it turned septic was the high temperature.”
The signs of sepsis are slurred speech or confusion, extreme shivering or muscle pain, passing no urine, severe breathlessness, and mottled or discoloured skin, according to the UK Sepsis Trust.
Vanderpump was born with the rare conditions congenital hepatic fibrosis of the liver and polycystic kidney disease. They were dormant until he contracted the flu and, coupled with asthma, his organs struggled to cope.
He said that knowing the main symptom for him was the high temperature, he became concerned about Yaxley when she was recently ill.
"My girlfriend, fiance, got an infection recently where she's got a high temperature, and I'm rushing her to go see a doctor, because I just want to get her treated," he said.
He added that if people are concerned about "normal symptoms like the flu, breathlessness, just a little bit of aches and pains, high temperature" they should see a GP and urge them to consider sepsis.
The reality star said he was shopping in London when he started becoming "dehydrated", and the next day it "got so bad, I had crusty lips. I was being delirious... she (my fiance) went, 'I've got to get you into hospital"'.
He added that he “was shopping in Selfridges, to 24 hours later, where the doctors were telling me I was going into liver and kidney failure".
“I mean, physically, on the outside, I believe I'm back to normality. I lost 15 kilos - around that sort of mark - when I was ill, and I've managed to put on... nearly 10kg," he said.
"I think (the) mental terms are very, very hard to deal with, the mental side of post-sepsis and being able to get back into normality, because you look fine on the outside, everyone else's lives go back to normal.
"But [you are] dealing with a kind of health anxiety."
In January, Vanderpump told The Mail: “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think my body could cope and that was the scariest thing. It was terrifying.
“I remember the doctor saying to me that I was going into liver and kidney failure. I burst into tears.”
Vanderpump has become an ambassador at charity UK Sepsis Trust, which says the condition causes "nearly 80,000 people each year (to) suffer life-changing after-effects in the UK, with 82% of sepsis survivors experiencing post-sepsis syndrome more than a year after hospital discharge, and 18% left permanently unable to work".
The reality star, who began on Channel 4 reality show Made In Chelsea last year, runs finance companies in the UK and Dubai and was previously a racing driver.
His aunt Lisa Vanderpump is known for The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills and her own spin-off programmes such as Vanderpump Rules.
