Reality TV star Jeff Lewis is under fire after talking flippantly about a giant holiday party he threw that resulted in he and several others contracting COVID-19 over the holidays.
The star of Bravo's Flipping Out made the comments on his SiriusXM radio show, saying the party he threw was so "epic" it was "worth almost dying for."
As hospitals across the country fill nearly to the point of collapse with COVID-19 patients, Lewis' flippant attitude about his opulent superspreader event makes Marie Antoinette look downright empathetic.
And it's gone over about as well as you'd expect on social media.
Lewis said on his radio program that the party was held on December 21.
It was a few days later when the results of the party—positive COVID-19 tests—began rolling in.
As Lewis put it:
“Thursday is when everyone started testing positive."
"Everyone" included Lewis' co-host Megan Weaver, assistant Shane Douglas, actress Monika Casey, Shahs of Sunset star Mercedeh Javid Feight and Lewis' boyfriend Scott Anderson among others.
According to Lewis:
"A third of us got it. And we also have people with symptoms who haven't been tested yet."
And from Lewis's telling, this was no "just a bad cold" case of COVID-19—Lewis said at one point he thought he might die.
"My fever went up to 103.8. [Lewis' boyfriend] Scottie took a bowl of ice water and was putting cloths on my body to try to bring the temperature down."
"I was a little delirious and I told him, ‘I think you’re going to wake up tomorrow and I’m going to be dead'.”
Despite that harrowing experience, Lewis claims it was all worth it.
“That was an epic party. It was so worth almost dying for."
And he's not having any of the criticisms being leveled against him, either.
Lewis insists he and his friends did nothing wrong.
“People are saying we’re reckless and stupid. No, we’re not, fu*kers. We were all vaccinated and we had a nurse there testing all of us before we even went in the door. I thought we were being responsible.”
Luckily for Lewis, he was able to receive life-saving monoclonal antibody therapy—a treatment frequently out of reach for many patients without his financial and celebrity connections—administered by a doctor in his home, no less.
As you might guess, the layers of oblivious privilege in Lewis' anecdote went over like a lead balloon.
Lewis also went on to decry what his COVID-19 case has done to the staff who runs his home, lamenting he's now down to just two housekeepers who aren't sick.
"...And if anything happens to those two, I’m not going to be able to feed myself. I don’t know who is going to be able to take care of me!”
We wish Lewis the best of luck in his recovery, both from COVID-19 and his astonishing case of Marie Antoinette-level privilege.
