Fans of Sandra Lee have watched her pop pimples for years on Dr. Pimple Popper.
Now, she’s revealing a secret about an on-set incident.
Lee has starred on the show since 2018.
After several seasons on TLC, she moved to Lifetime in April 2025 with “Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out.”
During filming, she had a health scare that will shock fans.
The 55-year-old reality said that she was on the set in November when she had a stroke.
The stroke left Lee with mild slurred speech and weakness one side.
Lee said that they were filming when she felt a hot flash.
“It happened while I was filming the show,” Lee said. “I had what I thought was a hot flash.
“I got super sweaty and didn’t feel like myself.”
“I just felt very restless,” she continued. “In one leg I kept feeling shooting pains.”
Lee went home, couldn’t fall asleep.
She got up to go to the kitchen and had trouble walking.
“I noticed that I was having a tough time walking down the stairs,” she recalled.
It wasn’t until the next morning that she wondered if she was having a stroke.
“I would hold my hand out, and it would just slowly collapse.”
“I noticed that I had a tough time articulating and just enunciating. I thought, ‘Am I having a stroke?’”
She called her father, who told her to go to the emergency room.
The MRI later revealed that Lee had suffered a stroke.
“It was just a shock,” said Lee.
“As a physician, I couldn’t deny that I had slurred speech.”
“I notice it right now that I don’t speak exactly the way I used to,” she added.
“You’re really embarrassed to speak because you notice it.”
Lee added that in the Asian culture, having something like a stroke can be “seen as a sign of weakness.”
Lee wants to highlight the health scare and erase the stigma.
“I want to get the word out that if you have symptoms like I had, make sure you see your doctor,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”
”It was very scary for me,” says Lee.
“There’s a lot of PTSD because it happened while I was filming the show.”
Dr. Pimple Popper is detailing a health scare. She shares that she suffered a stroke while filming season two of her Lifetime reality show: https://t.co/ScuKw69k0j pic.twitter.com/0TOWJrI8wm
— E! News (@enews) April 14, 2026
Lee told People magazine that she took off from the show for two months.
She had physical therapy to regain function on her left side.
Her left hand’s gripping strength is not what it was before her stroke.
Still, Lee is back at work treating patients.
The dermatologist provides her clients with life-changing proceduresand she is known for taking on some very serious cases on her show. In one episode, Lee removed a six-pound lipoma from a patient’s back, which she called “Lipoma Impossible.”
Season 2 of “Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out” premieres on April 20 on Lifetime.