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Ollie Locke has shared a health update on Sam Vanderpump after he revealed he has been diagnosed with irreversible end-stage liver disease.
Made In Chelsea fans were left sobbing as Sam, 28, revealed the diagnosis to Ollie, 38, and co-star Tabitha Willett, 33, on the E4 show and explained there was no cure.
He was only told of the prognosis a few days before the episode was filmed eight weeks ago.
Following the heartbreaking scenes, Ollie has revealed Sam is ‘like a brother’ and he and husband Gareth have been rallying around to support him and his pregnant fiancée Alice Yaxley.
Sharing a health update to the Daily Mail, Ollie said: ‘I think he’s all right. It’s very complicated. It’s a very difficult situation.
‘He’s just getting his head around everything, but I think having lots of people share their stories is giving him solace as well and something that is imperative I think because he puts this out for other people as well as himself, and to raise awareness.
‘At the end of the series, there’s a big fundraiser for, organ donation and I think.
‘When we spoke about it and stuff like that, since that’s happened, I think there’s been tens of thousands of people sign up for organ donation, which is great.
‘If we can save a couple of people’s lives in the next however long, well, you can f***ing say whatever you want about reality TV in all your life.’
The Made In Chelsea scenes where Sam revealed his diagnosis hit Ollie hard, with the reality star saying: ‘It was just f***ing heartbreaking, the whole thing, and I know he’s gonna be all right. I’m sure he’s gonna be all right, but a liver transplant’s a big deal and we just have to stay positive.’
Speaking as he launched iD Mobile’s Black Friday campaign, he continued: ‘I’ve done an awful lot of things on the show, coming out on camera, finding out our children have miscarried on camera a few times, getting married on camera, etc. That was really, really, raw, all of that was raw, everything like that, but this was something.
‘I just kept on thinking about him and his family and the baby and Alice and it just, I like broke down. I struggled with that.
‘But we’re all there as a family and we’re all trying to do everything we possibly can and they only live around the corner from us and as I said, we’re having dinner tonight and we’re all just sitting there.’
During an appearance on ITV’s This Morning last week, finance app owner Sam, who is the nephew of Vanderpump Rules star Lisa Vanderpump, explained he was told he had irreversible end-stage liver disease after he and Alice, 24, mistook his symptoms for the flu and using too many painkillers.
He said: ‘I was four when I first got diagnosed – through a series of testing they worked out I had congenital hepatic fibrosis (liver disease).
‘They always said, “you potentially may need a liver transplant”, and we went through a lot of testing and a lot of appointments, but as the years went on they went, “You’re healthy, you’re fine, you live your life normally…”
‘So much to the point that even a year before I got diagnosed, they were like, “Oh, we only need to see you every year, live your life normally”.
‘Then all of a sudden last year I got very ill with sepsis and things took a bit of a turn.’
In December 2024, Sam became increasingly unwell but he and Alice were certain at first that he had nothing more than a bad case of the flu.
Instead, the reality TV star’s organs were shutting down after he’d developed sepsis.
Sam continued: ‘We initially thought it was the flu, I was extremely dehydrated and went through a litre of water and said to Alice, “I just can’t quench my thirst…”
‘I ended up sleeping for two days, and Alice thought I was overdosing on codeine, just taking too much but it was days later that she realised I wasn’t right.
‘They got me into hospital and they turned around and went, “Your organs are going into failure”.’
Alice added of the ‘scary’ time for the couple: ‘It was difficult to know what was going on, I feel like even doctors when we’d been to the hospital in previous weeks weren’t entirely sure what was happening.’
It still took time for Sam to get the diagnosis that he needed, after doctors were thrown off by ‘blood results that showed everything was going wrong’.
Around three months ago, he received a ‘notification on the NHS app’ that he’d been confirmed to have irreversible end-stage liver disease that required a transplant.
Sam added: ‘I had to go through a thing of ruling everything out before they associated it to my disease, and they flooded my body with the strongest antibiotics they could find, like using an industrial cleaner on me.
‘I finally got better after 48 hours, and I started to respond – they said it was touch and go at one point. If I’d got into hospital 24 hours later, I wouldn’t have made it.
‘I got a notification on the NHS app from the new doctor I’ve been referred to saying, “I’ve reviewed your latest scans, and looking at this, you’re going to be sent for a liver transplant assessment”.’
Sam confirmed that the ‘shock’ liver transplant news would likely be the only way forward for him now, adding: ‘I was quite frantic.
‘I said to him, “I don’t understand because I feel perfectly well”, I’m sitting here today and I’ll probably go for a run, I don’t look like I need a liver transplant.
‘But he said to me, “I understand that but I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you if I thought in four or five years time that your liver would be OK”.
‘The big thing is, liver transplants are available today, they do one a day in the UK today, and with a liver transplant I should go on to live a perfectly normal life.’
Ollie Locke has partnered with iD Mobile for its Black Friday campaign, highlighting the brand’s amazing deals on phones and SIM plans. Visit iD Mobile to find out more.
