Joey Graziadei recently took a moment to address concerned Bachelor fans who noticed that his eyes appeared to be turning yellow. The Bachelor revealed why in a new video on social media, while also assuring fans that he is still “as okay as can be.”
“I wanted to jump on here really quick and talk about something that I’m seeing a lot of comments about, which is Joey’s yellow eyes,” he says in the video. “To give some context on that, I have to go all the way back to when I was in high school. I was sick for about a week and a half, and my mom thought it would be a good idea to go to the doctor.”
After discovering there may be an issue with his liver, Graziadei said he underwent several liver ultrasounds and saw multiple doctors before he was ultimately diagnosed with Gilbert syndrome. Frequent symptoms of Gilbert syndrome include a yellowish tinge to the skin and the whites of the eyes.
“At the end of the day, I am told that I am healthy,” Graziadei said in the video. “It’s something that does affect the whites of my eyes and makes it have those jaundice levels, which is why it looks yellow.”
He added that the symptoms can sometimes worsen from “stress or lack of sleep, which happens on a TV show.”
After assuring fans that he hopes to focus more on his health moving forward, Graziadei said, “I do appreciate everyone looking out for me and wondering if I’m okay, but to my knowledge, I’m as okay as can be.”
The 28-year-old bachelor recently stressed the importance of maintaining one’s mental health – especially while leading a reality series like The Bachelor.
“We are lucky on [The Bachelor] that we do have people that are there to help in that process. We have great doctors that are there to talk through mental health, and I think it is important,” Graziadei recently told Decider. “I think that it’s still sometimes in today’s world a little bit of a taboo subject, and I’m learning more and more how much it can help me to have those conversations… I’m grateful for it. And I know that women are, too.”
Maintaining your mental health is important if, say, you’re catching some flack for mixing up Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.