(NEW YORK) — Bachelor star Joey Graziadei is opening up about the reason behind his yellow-tinted eyes.
In a video he shared on Instagram, Graziadei addressed some of the comments he’s received recently about them, saying it was due to a liver condition called Gilbert Syndrome.
“Hi everyone, I hope you are having a beautiful day,” he began in the video. “I want to jump on here really quick and talk about something that I’m seeing a lot of comments about, which is Joey’s yellow eyes.”
“So to give some context on that I have to go all the way back to when I was in high school,” he continued. “I was sick for about a week and a half, and my mom thought it’d be a good idea to go to the doctor. When I went to the doctor, I had bloodwork done, and the bloodwork showed that my bilirubin count was very high. That means that there could be something wrong with my liver.”
“So we went and I got a liver ultrasound, I went to the doctors, they found out there was nothing that was necessarily wrong like hepatitis, but they diagnosed me with something called Gilbert syndrome,” Graziadei said.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Gilbert syndrome is an “autosomal recessive disorder of bilirubin metabolism within the liver.” This means that the liver does not process bilirubin properly, and this can cause your skin to turn yellow.
It’s a condition that can be discovered by accident, for instance when one gets a blood test done. Those who have Gilbert syndrome do not require specific treatment, according to NIH.
Graziadei said that at the end of the day, he’s healthy, but the condition does affect the whites in his eyes.
“It makes it have those jaundice levels, which is why they look a little bit more yellow,” he said.
He ended the video by saying that he wants to keep an eye on his health this year.
“It’s something I want to pay attention to more,” Graziadei said. “I want to get my health right and make sure that I’m all good. But I at least wanted to give some background that you know that to my knowledge, I am healthy.”
“It’s just something that I have to pay attention to drinking more fluids. It is worse when I have stress or lack of sleep, which happens on a TV show,” he continued. “And I do appreciate everyone looking out for me and wondering if I’m okay, but to my knowledge, I’m as okay as that can be and I will continue to look at it.”
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