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The reality star opened up about her strained relationship with her older brother, along with the warning signs that has her thinking he's a "blank shell" of who he once was.
Savannah Chrisley got emotional on this week's episode of The Chrisleys: Back to Reality as she opened up about her fractured relationship with brother Chase Chrisley, and her fears about his future.
"As hard as I am [on him], there is some fear in me that something's going to happen to Chase and it’s very valid," Savannah, 28, admitted on Tuesday's episode. "I mean, just in the way that he looks. Chase is not Chase. It's literally, like, a blank shell."
She continued, "You can tell it in all the weight that he's lost. The rings around his eyes. He's not who I know as my brother."
"I feel like I’ve already buried my brother," Savannah tearfully confessed.
Speaking with her therapist, Savannah revealed she has distanced herself from Chase, 29, as a form of "self-protection," explaining, "There’s a part of me that's so afraid that he's going to die that I don't even want to have a relationship with him. If something were to happen to him, now I'm closed off enough to where, I would be devastated but I feel like I've been trying to grieve the loss of him little by little so when it happens it's not a big bang."
Savannah said part of her fear stems from seeing how devastating the death of a sibling can be, noting that her mom Julie Chrisley lost her brother, Trey, at a young age.
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"I have to mentally and emotionally prepare myself that when that time does come that I step in and I'm going to have to care for my parents because they'll never be the same," she told the cameras. "It's the only way that I know how to protect myself. Which is, just by letting Chase know, what he's doing is wrong and it's going to lead to a terrible endgame."
Savannah has also voiced concerns over Chase's drinking, which made headlines earlier this year when he was arrested for simple battery following a night out in Atlanta -- he has not been charged.
Chase claimed he hadn't had a drink in "a month," acknowledging, "drinking had gotten me into a little trouble in the past."
The emotional episode also gave fans a raw look at Chase's ongoing health struggles. In a confessional he revealed: "Within the last year, I've lost a lot of weight. My body is just, like, rejecting food. Something's going on. It sucks. I mean, it's absolutely miserable."
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View StoryWhile out to lunch with business partner Cary Purcell, Chase admitted, "My health has gone to s--t. I don't know if it's just everything I've done catching up to me or stress," before joking: "The stress ain't gonna age me 'cause I’ll go under the knife."
Later, he quipped, "But I got a hemorrhoid the size of Alabama and a tax bill that could buy a lake house."
Behind the jokes, there was was genuine fear, however. After a doctor’s visit with girlfriend Jodi Fournerat, Chase admitted he was "kind of scared."
Jodi told cameras, "In regards to Chase's health, it's progressively gotten worse. He ultimately cannot keep a meal -- even sometimes water -- down. I've been trying to change his diet, but like the stubborn Chase that he is, he refuses to think that will help."
Chase later explained to his grandmother, Nanny Faye, that doctors were running tests on his gallbladder and stomach, and that if those came back clear, they'd order a CT scan "to see if I have a brain tumor."
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View Story"I don't know exactly what's going on with Chase," dad Todd Chrisley said in a phone call from prison. "For about four years, Chase has had stomach issues. He'd eat and he'd be in the bathroom or he'd be throwing up. And that seems to have gotten much worse since I left. He's lost 15 pounds."
Todd recalled urging his son to seek answers: "He goes, 'Maybe I don't wanna know if something is really wrong.' And I said, 'Do you know how stupid that sounds? You find out what's wrong and you get it fixed and you go on with your life. We are going to get to the bottom of it, I assure you.'"
Savannah and Chase's rocky relationship has been a recurring theme on the Lifetime docuseries, particularly after their parents went to prison in 2022 on fraud charges. During the September 1 premiere, Savannah claimed Chase hadn’t "helped me at all" during her two-and-a-half-year fight to get them released -- though the pair were ultimately freed in May after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
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View StoryDespite the strain, both Savannah and Chase expressed hopes of repairing their bond.
"I want to be close to her. I want a solid relationship with her," Chase said in his first therapy session. Savannah echoed, "He hasn't done anything beyond repair. I want a relationship with him. I want him to thrive."
The Chrisleys: Back to Reality series finale airs Tuesday, September 16 on Lifetime, with two back-to-back episodes starting at 8:00 p.m. ET.