Lisa Rinna is getting candid about how painful it is to witness her daughter Amelia's struggle with anorexia.
During Tuesday's episode of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," the Bravo star, 55, shared her anguish over 17-year-old Amelia's eating disorder, even admitting she wonders if she somehow caused it to happen.
"Amelia has issues with food. You watch Amelia take two steps forward, one step back," Rinna said during a confessional after viewers saw Amelia refuse to eat at an outdoor dinner prepared by her father, actor Harry Hamlin.
"It is not an easy, clean, ‘Okay great, you know, you did that, you had that, you got the help.’ It’s not like that," Rinna added. "It’s just, you know, one day at a time."
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, anorexia nervosa is characterized by weight loss (or lack of appropriate weight gain in children); difficulties maintaining an appropriate body weight; and in many, distorted body image. People with this eating disorder restrict the amount of calories they consume and what foods they eat. Other common behaviors include exercising compulsively, purging, taking laxatives or binge eating.
At the family's dinner, Hamlin served grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. Tensions rose after Amelia refused to eat, claiming she was "allergic to everything."
“You’re allergic to salad?” her sister, Delilah, 20, asked. Amelia replied, “No, I can have salad. But I don’t like that salad."
When Hamlin offered her a hot dog, Amelia, who first revealed her eating disorder in a March 2018 Instagram post, accused him of trying to "force-feed" her.
The situation escalated with Amelia calling Hamlin "passive aggressive" and flipping her middle finger at him.
During her confessional, Rinna shared, "The scariest thing about anorexia is: Is she going to have this forever? I don’t want to see her suffer. You want to fix it. You want to make it go away. You want to erase it. You know, you just want to take your child out of pain. You don’t want your child to be in pain.”
"You can’t help but blame yourself," she added. "You know, it’s like, 'What did we do to f--- her up?' Maybe we did something. I don’t know. I just know that it’s really, really hard to watch Amelia be in pain."
Prior to the episode airing, Amelia shared a note in her Instagram stories acknowledging her behavior.
"Tonight on the housewives you will see how my eating disorder affected myself and my family. There is a scene where I am EXTREMELY rude to my dad and the food he wants me to eat," she shared.
Amelia went on to say the show's footage was shot a year ago, and blamed her eating disorder for her behavior.
"During that time, one year ago — I was not in a good place at all," she wrote. "I may have looked like I was recovered, but I was most definitely not. Within the scene you will see me lashing out due to my fear of food."
"The person displayed in tonight’s episode is not the person I am. It was the person anorexia made me."