Dr. Pimple Popper Suffers Stroke While Filming

Dr. Sandra Lee, the dermatologist known as Dr. Pimple Popper, suffered an ischemic stroke in November 2025 while filming the second season of her Lifetime series, Dr. Pimple Popper Breaking Out, at her clinic in Upland, California.

Lee, 55, described the onset of symptoms during a day of shooting. "It happened while I was filming the show," she said in an interview with People magazine. "I had what I thought was a hot flash. I got super sweaty and didn't feel like myself." She completed the day's work and drove to her parents' home, where restlessness set in overnight. Shooting pains affected one leg, and she struggled to walk down the stairs. By morning, weakness had spread to her left side. "I would hold my hand out, and it would just slowly collapse," Lee recalled. "I noticed that I had a tough time articulating and just enunciating. I thought, Am I having a stroke?"

Her father, also a dermatologist, urged her to seek immediate medical care. At the emergency room, an MRI confirmed an ischemic stroke, caused by a blood clot blocking oxygen flow to the brain. "What essentially happened is I had a part of my brain that died," Lee said. "It was just a shock. As a physician, I...