‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Star Eden Sassoon Reveals She Overcame Addiction

Eden Sassoon dropped a bombshell about her past on Tuesday’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The daughter of beauty icon Vidal Sassoon revealed that she had dealt with alcohol addiction in her past after losing her sister to an overdose.

“I never really explored my sister’s death,” she told Lisa Vanderpump on Tuesday. “I just knew at some point she had to go. Here’s a woman who’s not strong enough to live this life.”

Her sister’s death sent her into a tailspin.

“My sister died of a drug overdose,” she explained. “And I don’t know if she chose to or it was an accident.”

That experience threatened to ruin her own life.

“I was a complete functioning alcoholic, having a mother recovering alcoholic and a sister who overdosed. Why did I drink for so many years?” she shared.

However, the salon and pilates studio owner is now sober. She remembers in detail her decision to get clean.

“It was six months after my dad passed,” Sassoon recalled. “I woke up really on the edge of my bed. And was like, ‘When, when, when are you going to stop? You have your life! You’ve been given a gift. You have children.’ I went right from there to a meeting.”

While the tragedies and challenges of her past are still a part of her, she is now using that experience to help others.

“I love it, and I love to poke others to awaken them to the life that I have now that I’m capable of that,” she continued.

It turns out she had someone specific in mind when she said that.

“[Kim Richards] has the behavior of a straight-on alcoholic,” Sassoon said of a fellow Housewives star. “I don’t need to spend that much time [with her to know] —she’s struggling.”

“And Kyle [Richards], I see the enabling — just kind of sitting back and watching this,” Sassoon continued. “Kyle is enabling to Kim because she allows this behavior to continue. She allows her to speak in ways that a sober woman wouldn’t speak. It’s just behavior as a sister that maybe you’d want to say something … In the thick of it, you have to be willing to step away and say ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

Vanderpump was not on board with her guest’s theory. “Kim’s great — she’s had a hard time,” she said. “She’s been up and down. I don’t have a great deal of experience in this matter. But surely if she’s sober and she’s not taking pills or alcohol, isn’t that enough?”

“[And] I don’t think Kyle enables,” she added. “No no — Kyle doesn’t enable Kim. Enabling behavior is maybe just turning a blind eye. But Kyle is not that person. I know that for sure. Kyle has stepped in many times, like really in, in the best way of it all. It’s just been a very fractious relationship, but they do ultimately love each other.”

Her argument did not soothe Sassoon’s fears.

“I saw all this happening and I was like ‘Oh my god I’m watching my family.’ And I just sort of lost it — I broke down,” she said. “Watching Kim and Kyle, I see Kyle possibly standing where I stand now. And that’s not having a sister.”

What did you think of Tuesday’s episode?

This story first appeared at Womanista.