‘Dancing With the Stars’: Christie Brinkley Releases Photo From Hospital Amid Wendy Williams Fake Claim

Christie Brinkley fired back at the doubters and critics by releasing a photo of herself in a cast at a hospital. Brinkley was supposed to compete on Dancing With The Stars, beginning Monday, but she broke her arm during rehearsals. Since her injury was announced at the last minute Monday morning, some thought it was a publicity stunt, but Brinkley assured this was not the case.

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Brinkley, 65, shared a photo of herself wearing a cast and sling with PEOPLE to prove the injury is real.
“The second I landed, I felt the shards in my arm,” Brinkley told the magazine. “Like, I literally felt it in my wrist, and I just instantly looked up and said, ‘I’m so sorry, I broke my arm.’”

Brinkley continued, “There’s a little bone at the thumb that usually posts one way… Mine was in the opposite direction. Then there was bone, just it, it was just shattered into a thousand little pieces, just a million of little pieces.”

On Monday, ABC announced Brinkley’s daughter, model Sailor Brinkley-Cook, 21, replaced Brinkley. At the start of the premiere, host Tom Bergeron said Brinkley-Cook had just three days to prepare.

The Parks and Recreation actress’ decision to release photos might have been a direct response to Wendy Williams who told her audience she did not believe Brinkley really got hurt.

“She fractured her shoulder and her wrist practicing over the weekend. Well, that looked fake as hell,” Williams said on The Wendy Williams Show. “Let me tell you what I see. What I see is a 65-year-old hot stuff who looks like if you were going to fracture anything, you should have said the tailbone. I don’t see a wrist and a shoulder being fractured, but that was real cute.”

Williams went on to accuse Brinkley of planning the injury from the moment she agreed to do DWTS in a conspiracy to get Brinkley-Cook on the show.

“Here’s my thought, OK. Dancing With the Stars called Christie Brinkley and said, ‘Do you want to do Dancing With the Stars?’ And she said, ‘Yes,’” Williams said. “After she got off the phone, that’s where she plotted her scheduled [injury]. She signed up knowing that she put her daughter in there. You know her daughter is beautiful.”

Brinkley announced she was injured and could not dance this season on Instagram and Good Morning America.

“I just broke my arm into a 1000 pieces requiring surgery with a metal plate and screws to hold my arm together..Im so sorry if I’ve disappointed anybody!” Brinkley wrote. “Only something as bad as this could stop me from continuing to dance with my wonderful coach for [DWTS] …I was having a blast!!!!”

Dancing With The Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: Getty Images