Baywatch star Yasmine Bleeth was bathing suit royalty in the '90's, but she's since fallen
into obscurity. She's in her fifties now, and she looks very different than she did
during her time on the beach. Keep watching to find out what happened to her.
During her time on Baywatch, Bleeth was hounded by the paparazzi, as stories about her suspected
drug use would fill countless tabloid column inches. In 2017, her former co-star Gena Lee
Nolin told Cosmopolitan that Bleeth was often treated unfairly by the press. As she put
it,
"It was absolutely nonstop [...] She was at the payphone where we filmed - this was before
cell phones - and she scratched her nose and the Enquirer had three pictures of her, like
front cover, 'Yasmine Bleeth - there's drugs' or whatever. And at the time, when I knew
her, there was none of that going on."
Some reports suggest that Bleeth's drug use didn't start until she left Baywatch and joined
the cast of crime drama Nash Bridges. But according to Baywatch producer Douglas Schwartz,
she had substance problems while she was on Baywatch as well. In 2012, he told Esquire,
"That's why we let Yasmine go off the show: because it was too difficult to deal with
her after a while."
Esquire also talked with Traci Bingham, who wasn't exactly sympathetic with her co-star's
plight, as she said,
"Yasmine Bleeth and the whole cocaine thing, who does that? Really? To the point where
she's so out of the business now. Completely M.I.A."
The way Yasmine Bleeth tells it, she wasn't fired from Baywatch, she simply took up another
offer when her contract ran out. That offer was the role of San Francisco P.D. Inspector
Caitlin Cross on Nash Bridges, and according to her, that's when her cocaine habit exploded.
She was dating fellow actor Richard Grieco at the time, and the long distance between
them quickly exposed cracks in their relationship. Out of desperation, she turned to cocaine.
As she told Glamour in 2003,
"I just wanted to feel good again. And I knew an easy way to get that feeling."
For a while, Bleeth was just a casual user, but things took a turn for the worse after
she started using when she was home by herself. Her addiction then spiraled out of control
and began to take a toll on her physical appearance. She told Glamour,
"By the end of 1999, I'd stopped looking like myself. I'm a fleshy girl, very curvy and
round, but I'd lost my softness. My friends said I looked like an alien, that my eyes
were bulging out of my face. I wasn't anorexic-looking, but instead of being a size 6 with a 29-inch
waist, I was 110 pounds and a size 0."
Bleeth has claimed that she never took drugs while on the job, but she couldn't deny that
her addiction had a major impact on her career. She told Glamour,
"Because I was doing them until 6 a.m., I'd still be high during the day. Sometimes I'd
be so exhausted that I'd fall asleep in my trailer and someone would have to come get
me."
Why didn't her colleagues see the red flags? According to Bleeth, they did, but they ignored
them. As she revealed to Glamour,
"I got a bloody nose on the set a couple of times, but the makeup artist would just hand
me a tissue without saying a word and I'd clean it up."
Bleeth's constant cocaine-related sniffling was in danger of exposing her habit, so her
publicist would exploit the fact that she had some prior sinus problems and say that
she had an allergic reaction. In 2001, a source from Nash Bridges told People Magazine,
"They were showing less of her full face. There's only so much makeup can do. Everyone
knew she had a drug problem."
Bleeth finally decided it was time to kick her habit when she was confronted by her father
after he found a bag of cocaine in her purse. She initially rejected his help and avoided
him for months while she finished shooting her last season of Nash Bridges. She then
returned to Los Angeles, where her dad was waiting for her at the airport. As she recalled
to Glamour,
"He took one look at me and started to cry [...] Seeing the expression on my father's
face and knowing his heart was being ripped out of his body - that was the first time
I was truly confronted by how I was affecting other people."
Her father begged her to let him help, and she agreed. He took her to a doctor, who told
her that she had been playing a dangerous game. She had a dime-size hole in her septum,
as well as an infection that had left her nose raw and bloody. The doctor told her that
if the infection had gone untreated, it could've progressed to her brain and killed her. Looking
back at that moment, Bleeth said,
"That scared me. At least until I started doing drugs again six weeks later."
In the fall of 2000, Bleeth was starring in the NBC primetime soap opera Titans. In September
of that year, she was at a photo shoot for the show. Her cocaine use had left her so
weak that the breeze from a fan caused her to collapse. A friend then came to collect
her and drive her home. She put Bleeth to bed and then left, but not before relieving
her of a few items. As she recalled to Glamour,
"When I woke up, my car keys were gone and my wallet was missing. When I looked in the
drawer where I usually kept my drugs, I found only a note that said, 'I'm the cocaine Robin
Hood, I took your cocaine and gave it to someone who really needed it - the toilet.' I still
have that note."
It wasn't until a month after her visit from the "cocaine Robin Hood" that Bleeth got the
motivation she needed. Two friends showed up to offer some support, and their words
deeply affected the struggling actor. According to Bleeth,
"They just said, 'We really miss you, we're there for you and this is really hurting us.'
I'd already been confronted by my father; I didn't want to be confronted by them too."
It was the fear of disappointing her friends that ultimately made Bleeth take the idea
of rehab seriously. Her father managed to convince Titans producers to give her the
time off, and she entered the Promises clinic in Malibu, California.
Bleeth was given an extra two weeks off after her Christmas break from Titans, which gave
her enough time to complete a month in rehab. She was still using drugs in the car on the
way there, but she ultimately found the experience easier than expected. As she told Glamour,
"Rehab was easy. There were only about twelve of us there, and I had a single room. We were
on a tight schedule: up at seven o'clock every morning, doing chores like cleaning the kitchen
or bathroom, then attending individual and group counseling sessions."
Bleeth didn't enter rehab with romance on her mind, but by the time she left Promises,
she was deeply in love. In her first few days there, she met strip club owner Paul Cerrito,
and it was love at first sight. Starting a relationship with another program participant
was frowned upon, but Bleeth knew that she had found the one. As she put it,
"Nothing used to make me feel as good as cocaine until I fell in love. Now the feeling I have
when I'm with Paul is better than how I felt on cocaine."
The happy couple eventually made things official at a low-key wedding in 2002.
On September 11, 2001, Bleeth and Cerrito were due to fly from Detroit, Michigan to
Los Angeles. But with the airports closed due to the terrorist attacks of that day,
the couple made a bad decision, as they bought some drugs and checked into a hotel. The following
evening, Bleeth was still high when the two of them got into their rental car. She lost
control of the vehicle and slammed into the median, and before she knew it, there were
several cop cars and an ambulance on the scene.
What happened next was a moment that Bleeth will never forget. Police found four syringes
containing what appeared to be liquid cocaine in her purse. She confirmed that she was high
and then acted incredulously when she was arrested. As she put it to Glamour,
"I remember saying, 'But I didn't hurt anybody, you're arresting me?' Then it occurred to
me: oh, that's right, drugs are illegal. That's the scary thing: I'd really forgotten that
what I was doing was illegal."
The accident made Bleeth and Cerrito reevaluate things and ultimately saved their relationship.
As she put it,
"The only reason Paul and I are together today is because we had some divine intervention:
our accident."
Bleeth made a number of film appearances in the late 90s as she attempted to parlay her
TV stardom into big-screen success. Unfortunately, though, the performances she turned in didn't
really impress the critics, and they absolutely hated one in particular. Her turn as Trey
Parker's love interest in the 1998 comedy BASEketball was widely derided. She was even
nominated in the Worst Actress category at the Golden Raspberry Awards, though she did
lose to all of the Spice Girls for Spice World.
Her career stalled when Titans was cancelled after one season, and before long, she became
a bit of a ghost. She was working on a horror movie called Beautiful Evil at one point,
but that never saw the light of day. Her most recent credit listed on IMDb is the 2003 TV
movie Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding. It's unclear whether she left Hollywood to recover or if
the roles simply dried up as a result of her personal woes, or both. It's a tough business,
and considering everything she's been through, the fact that she's no longer landing roles
shouldn't be too surprising.
At the height of her fame, Yasmine Bleeth wasn't exactly on track to win an Oscar, but
she was the type of celebrity who women wanted to be and men wanted to be with.
"Is there a guy in your life right now? Is there anything that you can talk about on
the air?" "I'm still waiting, Conan."
But even if her career hadn't been derailed by drugs, there's no guarantee that she would
be busy working, as there aren't exactly a huge variety of roles for middle aged women
in Hollywood. The former bombshell looks more like someone's friendly mom these days, and
there's plenty of paparazzi shots to prove it.
In January 2015, Bleeth made a public appearance at the 55th annual Penguin Plunge in Venice
Beach. That marked the first time that she'd been photographed by the paparazzi since she
attended Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro's engagement party back in 2003. She's been
seen on just a handful of occasions since then. Sometimes she's with her husband, and
sometimes while walking her dog.
As anyone who's struggled with drug addiction will tell you, recovery is a lifelong battle.
For Yasmine Bleeth, she's been able to avoid backsliding by indulging in the simple things
in life. As she confessed to Glamour,
"I'm enjoying [...] being social, sleeping in, curling up in a big down comforter. When
I was taking drugs, I lost my love for all that."
"You're Yasmine Bleeth! How could you not have plans?!" "I think I'll probably stay
at home, cook myself some dinner."
She's happy to have found some stability, though staying clean has been a real struggle
for her over the years. She finds things like going to clubs difficult because she relates
"happy feelings" to cocaine. But every time that she almost talks herself into using again,
she reminds herself of where one just line of cocaine will lead. As she explained,
"I mentally walk myself through the entire scenario, the end result of which is me alone
in my apartment, not speaking to my friends, not speaking to my family. And probably without
my husband."
Through all the ups and downs Bleeth has learned one important lesson: she can't truly experience
love when she's under the hold of drugs. According to her,
"Every day I have to make the choice again. So far, I choose love."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357.