Savannah Chrisley broke into tears detailing her strained relationship with brother Chase Chrisley — and his alleged self-destructive tendencies — on the latest episode of The Chrisleys: Back to Reality.
“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, said during the Tuesday, September 9, episode of the Lifetime reality show. “I mean, just in the way that he looks. Chase is not Chase. It’s literally, like, a blank shell.”
Savannah claimed, “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.”
She confessed, “I feel like I’ve already buried my brother,” before grabbing a tissue and wiping away tears.
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Later in episode 5 of the series, Savannah told her therapist that she has distanced herself from Chase, 29, as a form of “self-protection.”
“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,” Savannah admitted. “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 told viewers that her guard is up with Chase because she’s seen how the death of a sibling can fracture a family. (Her mom, Julie Chrisley, lost her brother, Trey, when he was a young man, which Savannah said was “heartbreaking.”)
“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,” Savannah said of how she’s handling Chase’s possible death.
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.”
During the show’s September 1 premiere, Savannah revealed that she and Chase were on “rocky terms” after their parents, Todd Chrisley and Julie, 52, went to prison for bank fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion charges in 2022.
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She alleged that Chase hadn’t “helped me at all” during her two-and-a-half-year battle to get Todd, 56, and Julie out of jail. The pair were eventually released in May after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
Savannah also voiced concerns over Chase’s drinking during the show. Chase made headlines in January when he was arrested for simple battery following a night out in Atlanta. (He has yet to be charged.)
Chase, meanwhile, accused Savannah on the show of driving “a little wedge” between him and their youngest brother, Grayson Chrisley, amid his personal ups and downs.
Despite their issues, both Savannah and Chase expressed a desire on Tuesday’s episode to mend fences.
“I want to be close to her. I want a solid relationship with her,” Chase told his therapist during his first session.
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Chase explained that he thinks Savannah “wants to have control” over his life, partly because she’s “afraid something else will happen” to him.
He claimed at the time that he hadn’t had a drink in “a month,” admitting that drinking had gotten him into “a little trouble” in the past.
Savannah, on the other hand, told the same therapist in her own session that Chase “hasn’t done anything beyond repair.” She added, “I want a relationship with him. I want him to thrive.”
The Chrisleys: Back to Reality series finale airs on Lifetime Tuesday, September 16, at 8 p.m. ET with two back-to-back episodes.
