The true story of what this HGTV host went through was completely obscured somewhere between the viral posts and the breathless Facebook comments claiming that David Bromstad had been diagnosed with stage IV brain cancer. The internet has a way of doing that, spreading fear more quickly than information. However, the reality regarding David Bromstad’s health is more compassionate than the rumor and, in certain respects, more important.
The story of glioblastoma is untrue. Completely refuted and traced back to what seems to be a repurposed social media scam template that has previously attached itself to other public figures. Bromstad is not in the hospital, has not received a brain cancer diagnosis, and the images and posts that are circulating under his name that purport to show otherwise are untrue. The sheer number of people who believed it—thousands of comments, prayers, and condolences—is startling. Even though it also illustrates how quickly false information spreads when people are passionate about the topic, it shows how much affection HGTV viewers have for him.
Bromstad had poured himself into a house in Florida, where the true story started. The renovation was destroyed by a strong storm that caused water damage, mold growth in the walls, and other damage that necessitated a full demolition down to the studs. Seeing his own house fall apart seemed to have a different impact on someone who had dedicated his career to remodeling other people’s spaces. “My childhood fantasy, my house, broken, like me,” he remarked during his special in December 2025. That’s a really good sentence. It’s possible that those who haven’t experienced something similar don’t fully comprehend the profound connection between a person’s sense of self and their home, but Bromstad appeared to grasp it quite well—perhaps too well, at that point.
To cope with the stress, which was exacerbated by a difficult breakup and what he described as unresolved childhood trauma, including years of bullying as a teenager and the unique challenges of growing up gay in rural Minnesota in the 1980s, he turned to drugs. There’s a feeling that Bromstad spent years projecting brightness on television without fully processing any of it, and none of that is light material. He stopped construction, checked himself into a trauma-based rehabilitation program, and ultimately traveled to Norway, of all places, to climb the Reinenbringen mountain. That particular detail seems intentional in some way. Not a vacation spot. A mountain.
In May 2025, he shared an Instagram Story of himself with an oxygen tube in his nose without any explanation or caption, which briefly alarmed fans. Concern quickly filled the comments. The next day, he explained that he had only been using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for wellness, which is a treatment that supports tissue recovery by delivering pure oxygen under elevated air pressure. Nothing ominous. However, it demonstrated how intently people are observing him and how quickly worry can give way to conjecture when information is lacking.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the fans who talk about Bromstad the most tend to highlight the same traits: that he never condescends, that he seems genuinely happy for the people on his show, and that his enthusiasm for a buyer’s excitement about laminate countertops or a first dishwasher reads as completely authentic. Only he can determine if that warmth was always wholly genuine or if it was, as he himself indicated, an unsustainable version of himself. The version that has been sober for almost three years is more grounded than the previous one.