- Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com
Made In Chelsea‘s Sam Vanderpump has said he’s gone through ‘a huge internal battle’ over accepting a living donor transplant after his end-stage liver disease diagnosis.
The reality star, 29, was diagnosed with irreversible end-stage liver disease last year and is now on the transplant waiting list.
One of the options for Sam is to have a living donor liver transplant where a section of liver is removed from a living donor. But he has mixed feelings about it.
Speaking to The Times he says: ‘Could you imagine if I go in for a liver transplant , I wake up and my friend or family member has died on the table? I don’t think I could live with that and I don’t want to have to live with that.’
The anatomy of the liver is such that transplant surgeons are able to remove part of it from a living person and transplant it into a patient with end-stage liver disease.
Many of these procedures are performed all around the world but do carry a risk of the donor dying, writes the NHS.
For adult transplants requiring the larger right lobe from a living donor, the risk of the donor dying is about 1 in 200.
Made In Chelsea’s Sam Vanderpump has said he’s gone through ‘a huge internal battle’ over accepting a living donor transplant after his end-stage liver disease diagnosis
The reality star, 29, was diagnosed with irreversible end-stage liver disease last year and is now on the transplant waiting list
Nearly 97 out of 100 of livers transplanted in the UK come from deceased donors.
However there have been no recorded living lover donor fatalities in the UK – a statistic which gave Sam comfort.
He said: ‘Before that [statistic] I was terrified of what I was putting someone else through but now if someone is willing to offer me a portion of their liver I would accept it – particularly as it frees up a place on the waiting list for someone else.’
His mother is not a match for him as a transplant but his brother is being tested to see if he is.
Fellow Made In Chelsea star Gareth Locke – who is married to Ollie Locke – is the same blood type as Sam and has said he would be willing to go through the process.
In January Sam declared 2025 the ‘toughest but best year’ after tying the knot with his co-star Alice Yaxley, amid his battle with end-stage liver disease.
Sam married the model, 24, in an intimate ceremony in December, ahead of them welcoming their first child, a baby boy, in February.
The couple’s wedding came after a hugely difficult period, during which Sam became seriously ill with flu in late 2024, developing sepsis and suffering liver and kidney failure.
He was later diagnosed with irreversible end-stage liver disease and is now on the transplant waiting list.
Sam and his wife Alice welcomed a baby boy together in February after tying the knot last December
Alice gave birth at the Kensington Wing of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Monday, 9 February.
Sam popped the question to Alice last March, after he was hospitalised in January with liver and kidney failure that developed into life-threatening sepsis.
He was born with the rare conditions congenital hepatic fibrosis of the liver and polycystic kidney disease, but they lay dormant until the December before, when his organs began shutting down.
In an episode of the We Need To Talk podcast with Paul C Brunson, Sam described how he later discovered the devastating truth behind his symptoms, soon after learning Alice was pregnant.
The star candidly revealed how he feared he would die before getting to meet his son after first being told he needed a liver transplant to save his life.
Sam, whose father passed away seven years ago, went on to explain how his thoughts went straight to his unborn child, saying: ‘I always get sad when I think my dad’s never going to see his grandchild.
‘To now start having that thing dawned on you. Am I going to see my child? That’s terrifying.’
