The Real Reason Yolanda Hadid And David Foster Divorced
When a member of The Real Housewives franchise gets divorced, it can mean only one thing: enough drama to sate our hunger for weeks to come. Though fans and fellow cast members of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills were shocked by the divorce of David Foster and Yolanda Hadid, there were signs that the superstar music producer and former model's marriage had already hit a few sour notes.
For starters, are there any husbands on any of these series that are all that jazzed about appearing on the show? Well, David Foster waited several years after his exit, but finally let his thoughts on that very subject known. Plus, as depicted on the show, these two seemed to be in an opposites attract situation from the jump — he's a jet-setting musician, while she's a self-professed homebody. Could that have dynamic turned out to be less romantic than it seemed? Let's take a closer look at the reasons this power couple split.
David Foster hated being a Real Househusband
Like most Real Housewives of Beverly Hills stars, Yolanda was famous for something other than reality television in her younger years. In her case, she had a modeling career that took her all over the world. According to People, her hunger to reclaim the spotlight was more ravenous than her husband's aspirations, though the famous music producer reportedly did try to keep up by appearing on the series, perhaps against his better judgment.
The tabloids have been whispering for a while that the Real Househusband wasn't pleased with his participation on the Bravo series, but in September 2019, he finally came out and admitted it. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the 16-time Grammy winner claimed, "The Beverly Hills Housewives was just kind of a nightmare for me and something that I really wish I hadn't been part of."
Foster's main gripe was that his decades-long music career was overshadowed by his wife's reality fame. Seriously, winning 16 Grammys is almost unheard of, yet he constantly found himself being asked by reporters about the RHOBH cast. "I wanted to say, 'I've got 16 Grammys, b—!' But I didn't," he told the Los Angeles Times of a particular interview. "[The reporter] really had no clue about my musical history at all ... A lot of people loved that show. I can't imagine why, but they did."
Yolanda Hadid believes Lyme disease caused her divorce
In her memoir Believe Me: My Battle With the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease (via Entertainment Tonight), Yolanda Hadid says she doesn't know how she contracted Lyme disease. It could have been lying dormant in her body since childhood, but the symptoms began to take hold just a year into her marriage. According to Bravo's Personal Space, the former Real Housewife claimed the disease caused her divorce. When the Grammy-winning producer finally called it quits, he reportedly told her that her "sick card" was up. "The patient suffers, but the caretakers suffer too," Yolanda said during a 2016 episode of Dr. Oz (via Bravo). "Because life doesn't only change for us, it changes for the person next to you."
This sentiment was echoed in the tabloids when news broke about the pair's split. A source who spoke to Page Six claimed David thought "everything revolves around her and her illness." Even her fellow Housewives apparently couldn't stomach a sick star in their midst and reportedly slammed her for daring to go makeup-free at a dinner party. An E! News insider claimed Yolanda getting sick just a year into her marriage was "a lot."
Did David Foster question Yolanda Hadid's illness?
While he doesn't doubt that his wife suffers from Lyme disease, David Foster may have doubted how ill she was feeling. According to Us Weekly, a friend of the songwriter claimed, "David and his family think Yolanda just loves the attention of being sick. They believe she's exaggerating her condition. And they point out that she's never gotten a legit diagnosis or a second or third opinion."
David later issued a statement to Us Weekly calling the aforementioned gossip "baseless" and "inaccurate." The music mogul said, "I have always had and continue to have the utmost respect and love for Yolanda, which is why it is so frustrating to see headlines questioning her chronic debilitating illness." He added, "I have been by Yolanda's side over the past four years to the best of my ability as she battled with the complexities of her Lyme diagnosis."
David Foster claimed other issues caused the divorce
Though Yolanda Hadid claims Lyme caused her divorce, David Foster believe that was not the sole trigger. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he said they had "some other issues." So, what were those mysterious challenges? He didn't elaborate, but the tabloids did.
According to Page Six, David believed Yolanda "always plays the victim" and was "sick of it." The source who spoke to the gossip rag claimed the former housewife was "so self-righteous." Even if David's issues with his fourth wife weren't as caustic as the tabloid's framed it, there's no denying that Lyme disease was just one of Yolanda's many hurdles that, when combined, might have put a strain on their marriage. In her memoir Believe Me: My Battle With the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease (via Entertainment Tonight), the reality TV star said her Lyme diagnosis triggered a wave of other diagnoses including metal poisoning, bacterial infections, parasites in her intestines, and loose silicone in her lymph nodes from a leaking breast implant. Hadid also said she was also diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus when she was 13 years old and has suffered through bouts of hepatitis.
Yolanda Hadid and David Foster's lifestyles didn't match
Sometimes two lives just become totally incongruent, and Yolanda Hadid and David Foster began living wildly different lifestyles. According to Page Six, David spent his time traveling (he is, after all, a Grammy-winning musician) while Yolanda was stuck in bed battling her chronic illness. Things weren't always this way. By her own admission, Hadid changed after her diagnosis, but Foster remained on the same path. In an episode of Dr. Oz (via Us Weekly), the former supermodel admits that her Lyme diagnosis shifted her life purpose.
"Unfortunately, these are the cards that life dealt me," she said. "It wasn't by choice. But I'm not the woman I used to be and I probably will never be again. My focus, my energy goes to trying to get well, trying to make a difference, trying to find a cure for my children ... and David's life is really traveling, going to concerts, loud music. And I mean, I couldn't, I can barely listen to the radio."
Yolanda Hadid and David Foster's real-life Brady Bunch broke up
The Brady Bunch worked on TV, but The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is not a wholesome '70s sitcom. It may not have been easy for Yolanda Hadid and David Foster to meld their two blended families after tying the knot — and the pair had a whopping eight children between them! Yolanda has two daughters and a son — famed models Bella, Gigi, and Anwar Hadid — from her marriage to real estate developer Mohamed Hadid. David entered his fourth marriage with five kids from his previous three wives.
"David has daughters of his own and there were issues with the families blending. Bringing two sets of children together wasn't always easy," a source told E! News. "At one point, Yolanda was close to David's daughters, but things have changed." Keep in mind that both Bella and Gigi were in high school when their mama joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. That's an age when children often want more personal space and not five extra siblings. It's not fair to say this bunch never got along, but a 2003 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family did indicate that children decrease marital satisfaction.
David Foster pulled the plug, but Yolanda Hadid felt trapped in the marriage
In her memoir Believe Me: My Battle With the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease (via Entertainment Tonight), Yolanda Hadid admitted that she felt "trapped" in her relationship with David Foster. She reportedly came to that conclusion in 2014 — a year before the couple announced its divorce — when David "refused to join her on a trip to Bali." Yolanda might have had her Eat, Pray, Love moment, but David was the one who allegedly told her that the marriage was over. "How do I all of a sudden feel trapped by the most quality human being in my life?" she wrote. "I feel empty and lost all drive to try to fix all the issues that have broken our bond."
Hadid also felt trapped by her chronic illness. In her memoir (via People), The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star admitted that she contemplated suicide in 2014 during a Florida vacation with Foster. "God please just take me away in a wave. I can't live like this one more day. Please carry my body away. I just want to disappear," she wrote. "My next thought is a clear image of my three children. It shifts my consciousness immediately and that's the only thing that keeps me from letting myself drift and drown." Today, the supermodel mama seems to be coping better with the disease. In 2017, she told Entertainment Tonight that she felt "90 percent there."
David Foster and Yolanda Hadid kept their finances separate
Though Yolanda Hadid's divorce took about two years to finalize, determining how to handle the finances might have been one of the easier parts. The pair always, always kept separate finances. In her memoir, Believe Me: My Battle With the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease (via Entertainment Tonight), the former supermodel admitted that David Foster wanted to keep things divided because of arguments about money in his three previous marriages, and she obliged.
"I married David for love and not to be taken care of," she wrote. "I understand he's sensitive around finances. Of course, he doesn't want to provide for my children. That's Mohamed's job and my job and exactly the reason why I am very driven to keep working." According to her memoir, the pair's separate financial situation is also partially what prompted Hadid to sign a four-year contract with Bravo — the same contract Foster might have been uneasy about. It helped her bring in six figures per season, though, so that would have been tough to pass up.
The rest of the RHOBH cast was shocked by the divorce
According to Page Six, Yolanda Hadid and David Foster somehow managed to hide their marital problems. It seems like the pair absolutely shocked Yolanda's Real Housewives co-stars when it released a joint statement to the press. "I'm still really shocked about it," Eileen Davidson told Us Weekly. "I have seen her and David together in the last season a few times, and it seemed fine ... Nobody knows what's going on with them."
The tabloid also spoke to some more of Hadid's fellow housewives to get the real rundown on how they felt about the split. Their support was particularly surprising, considering the bunch seemed rather unsympathetic about her debilitating disease, which sometimes forced her to stay in bed for 22 hours a day. Costar Camille Grammer, who went through a traumatic divorce of her own, said Hadid's breakup was "terrible" but had faith in her friend's strength. Both Lisa Rinna and Lisa Vanderpump said they reached out to the star. LVP supposedly even sent Hadid flowers. "I thought they were really a lovely couple. It's very upsetting. It really affected Ken [Todd] and I," Vanderpump told Us Weekly.
Why did Yolanda Hadid changed her surname after her divorce?
Yolanda Hadid didn't keep David Foster's surname after their divorce was finalized in 2017, but she didn't go back to her maiden name van den Herik, either. Instead, Yolanda reverted back to the surname of her first husband, Mohamed Hadid. It's an unconventional choice, but Yolanda said she wanted to share a name with her three children. In an episode of Watch What Happens Live, the reality star said her decision was largely based on the preferences of Gigi, Bella, and Anwar Hadid. "I asked the kids, you know, 'Should I go back to 'van den Herik'? and they said, 'No, you're our mommy and we have the same last name,'" Yolanda said.
It makes sense, especially considering "Hadid" has become a brand — not only for her millionaire ex-husband's real estate business — but for her offspring's modeling careers. All of her babies have jumped into the family business, and the last name unifies them as an unstoppable force in the modeling world.
David Foster moved on in a hurry
It didn't take long for David Foster to start dating after breaking up with wife No. 4. Yolanda Hadid and Foster announced their split in December 2015, and by March 2016, the producer was spotted on a rumored "romantic date" with actress Selma Blair, per Us Weekly. A Vanity Fair profile reported that David also dated model Christie Brinkley that year, but there were conflicting reports. Despite who David may or may not have dated in the year following his separation, the producer told Vanity Fair that he was trying to approach love differently in the future. "I tend to go from marriage to marriage — leaving one wife for another," Foster said. "This is the first time in my adult life that I've been single. It's a very powerful feeling, but I'm not used to it. Someone said to me recently that you need to be very careful about the person you pick to spend the rest of your life with. It's kind of weird that I'm hearing that now and thinking, Oh, right."
Nonetheless, that sentiment didn't last long. According to People, rumor had it that Foster began dating Katherine McPhee in May 2017 (some months before his divorce to Yolanda was finalized) and married her in June 2019. McPhee and Fosterreportedly met on the set of American Idol in 2006.
Yolanda Hadid finally found love again
It took Yolanda Hadid a bit longer than David Foster to find love again, but in January 2018, she revealed on The Wendy Williams Show that she was off the market. "I needed to take that time for me to heal, and to step into my own power as a single woman. ... It was great, but I just met an amazing man, and I'm very much in love," Hadid said.
Her new beau was businessman Matt Minnis, though she didn't initially reveal his name because he was both "a very private person" and a non-celeb. According to Us Weekly, the couple split that summer, but it seems like Hadid took that breakup in stride. By May 2019, she found someone new, according to her castmate Erika Girardi, who let the secret slip during an episode of Watch What Happens Live. Though Hadid posted ominous Instagram stories and grid posts, she didn't confirm her new relationship until three months later.
In an August 2019 tweet, the former model admitted that she'd been dating businessman Joseph Jingoli for eight months. She also took to Instagram to share a few loved-up photos of the pair. You can't deny that the girl has a type.
David Foster's new bride wants babies
It's very possible that David Foster wanted to expand his brood which, according to People, already includes five children and seven grandchildren. But rumors that the Grammy winner has been planning to have a family with his new bride, Katharine McPhee, have simmered since their engagement. In August 2019, McPhee finally opened up about her desire to have children of her own during a seaside chat with her stepdaughters Erin and Sara Foster (via Us Weekly). Both women "fully" supported their stepmom, who is their junior, and confirmed that they "fully expect her to have a child" with their pops.
On the other hand, having more children doesn't really seem like a priority for Yolanda Hadid. Not only is she battling a chronic illness, she's fighting off menopause symptoms with bioidentical hormone therapy. Even though she could always adopt, the star already has three of the most famous, successful children in Hollywood. It really seems like the former model is past that point in her life, but then again, she could always pull a Madonna.