Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Crystal Minkoff opened up about the aftermath of a recent health scare.
“I was late to come here because I was at my doctor’s,” Minkoff, 43, said during the Monday, April 27, episode of her “Humble Brag With Crystal and Cynthia” podcast, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing mental and physical health. “My blood pressure was really high this week. We talked about it a few weeks ago because now it’s conscious.”
Minkoff wasn’t thrilled to see her blood pressure being 160 over 110.
“I was like, ‘OK, so we’re in the realm of [a] stroke now,'” she noted. “They call it the silent killer.”
While reflecting on her health challenges, Minkoff said she has felt “a constant pressure” on her chest, which she told her doctor.
“We did my blood pressure when I got there. He’s like, ‘Your heart rate is very low,'” she recalled. “It’s very low. He’s like, ‘That pressure is your heart working too hard.’ It’s real. So we did my EKG and he said my heart was slightly enlarged.”
Minkoff talked with the healthcare professional about next steps, adding, “We doubled up my medication. He’s like, ’80 percent is definitely hereditary, but the 20 percent are all the little adjustments that I can make.’”
She continued: “He said, ‘You don’t exercise enough.’ For women — particularly because I was talking about weights — I’m less interested in weights for men. Women must do weights because we lose muscle very quickly as we get older.”
The former reality star was also told to prioritize cardio.
“He wants me to do five days or five hours of exercising a week. He said, ‘You’re 43. Hiking is not enough for you to make your heart work,'” she continued. “He’s like, ‘You need to get to a point where it becomes a mental thing for you.’ I need to feel like I should exercise or else I’m not feeling mentally healthy.”
Minkoff pointed out that her specialist is “a very, very famous doctor” who is known “for being super healthy.”
“His whole thing is exercise forward. He doesn’t like meds, but he also is like, ‘If you need meds, you need meds.’ I only say this because I’m 43 and he’s like, ‘Look, you can wait 10 years, but by the time you’re in your 50s, you’re not going to have any motivation left,'” she detailed. “I need to start now or I’m going to really suffer in [my] 60s.”
Minkoff, who has been candid about her eating disorder recovery, previously spoke about her health after experiencing a “scary” incident during a 2024 episode of RHOBH.
“My family history has a history of high blood pressure [and] hypertension and it’s something that I know that I’ve struggled with, but I didn’t realize it could get to this point,” she said in a confessional after feeling “dizzy” while the cast was on a trip to Spain. “It was so scary. … I’ve never been faced with my mortality.”
