‘Traitors’: What Is Tara Lipinski’s Medical Condition? Breaking Down Her Health Issues

The penultimate episode of The Traitors Season 4 featured just seven contestants heading into the Round Table after Kristen Kish was murdered by the Traitors. With the competition winding down, winning a shield to avoid being murdered next was more important than ever, and the challenge to earn safety was quite a doozy.

The players went to a fair and were spun around on a carousel, then had to race into a field to find prizes stuffed with gold to add to the prize pot. After each round, a seat or two was removed from the ride, and only the final person on the carousel at the end could win the shield.

Host Alan Cumming revealed that Tara Lipinski and Eric Nam would “not be riding” the contraption for “medical reasons.” Dolls replaced them on the spinning carousel, but they still had to race into the field to collect gold and try to make it back before the others.

The pair’s health issues were not disclosed on the show, which has many wondering what medical condition Lipinski suffers from. While the exact reason she couldn’t ride the carousel is unclear, we rounded up everything we know about her health from over the years.

What health issues does Tara Lipinski have?

Lipinski has endometriosis, which she explained is when “cells similar to the lining of the uterus are found outside of the uterus.” The condition often causes “inflammation and pain” because lesions can “grow on your organs causing scarring and adhesions, and that can sometimes result in these organs sticking together,” Lipinksi continued.

She opened up about the diagnosis in 2020, sharing on Instagram, “The irony of my endometriosis diagnosis is that I knew almost nothing about a disorder that affects one in ten women. That’s 176 million people. I’d never heard another woman mention “endo” or the complications and pain that accompany it.”

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What surgery did Tara Lipinski have?

In September 2000, Lipinski had surgery on her hip to repair a torn labrum that she endured after years of figure skating. She was just 18 years old at the time. Lipinski is not exactly sure when she tore the cartilage in her hip, but the pain eventually got bad enough that she had to have a three-hour procedure done to get relief.

For years, “no one could figure out” what was causing Lipinski’s pain. “I had a million different answers to what it was,” she said. She also admitted, “I thought it was just torn muscles, but right after the [1998] Olympics, when it got bad, we had MRIs and they said it would be just fine. But it shouldn’t take seven months to come back from a torn muscle.”

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Although the surgery was only supposed to take 45 minutes, it ended up lasting more than three hours because Lipinski “had cartilage overgrowing the bone and was developing arthritis.” She was able to start skating again just one week later and continued touring as a professional skater until 2002, when she officially retired.

The pro athlete has also had several surgeries for her endometriosis. Most recently, there was a procedure in 2024 to remove a lesion from her ovary. At that time, she also had her fallopian tubes removed to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.

How many miscarriages did Tara Lipinski have?

Lipinski struggled with a years-long fertility journey before welcoming her daughter, Georgie, via surrogate in October 2023. She had four miscarriages between the years of 2018 and 2023.

Amid her fertility journey, Lipinski underwent anesthesia 24 times. In addition to the four miscarriages, she also had six failed IVF transfers and did eight egg retrievals in the hopes of a viable pregnancy. She received her endometriosis diagnosis during this time and had her surgeries for that in 2020, 2022, and 2024.

The Traitors, Season 4, Thursdays, 9/8c, Peacock