Entertainment

Model resilience

Yolanda Foster is finally opening up about two health scares that nearly destroyed her life.

The fourth wife of music producer David Foster — and the newest member of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” — says she broke her back in three places while giving birth to son Anwar 13 years ago.

“They gave me potassium, which induces the contractions, and my son had an allergic reaction,” she reveals exclusively to The Post.

“His heartbeat stopped. And rather than waiting to do an emergency C-section, I kind of pushed him out in a panic. I ripped my lower back and had to have a triple fusion.”

The former Dutch supermodel admits the youngest of her three children “probably wouldn’t have made it” had she not raced to complete the delivery.

The physical trauma left Foster, 48, bedridden for more than a year and led to what she calls “a terrible bout with depression.”

“I have a huge scar on my stomach,” she reveals. “And [my son] always looks at it and says ‘That was me, right?’

“It was really a struggle. A lot tougher than getting on the Beverly Hills Housewives.”

Just a few years later, Foster faced her own mortality again when doctors discovered a tumor on her thyroid.

“My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thank God she is still alive today. But it has been in the family,” she says.

Surgery eventually revealed the growth to be benign, and Yolanda — who was raised on a farm in Holland — dodged another bullet.

“But I did have a scare and all the drama that comes with it,” she admits.

The product of a lower-income family, Foster lost her father when she was just 7.

“From an early age on I had a strong sense of having to provide for my family,” she says.

At 13, the blooming beauty took her first job as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant. Three years later, she was discovered by modeling icon Eileen Ford.

“I am just a normal girl from next door who has always worked hard and didn’t get anything for free in life,” she says.

But in 2003, Yolanda did walk away from her 8-year marriage to developer Mohamed Hadid with a $6 million Malibu mansion, more than $3 million in cash and $10,000 in monthly spousal support.

The payments ended when she married Foster, 62, last November.

Yolanda says she agreed to join “Real Housewives” this year after previously turning down an invitation at the beginning of Season 2.

Despite a pre-existing relationship with Lisa Vanderpump (who she knew through Hadid), Foster says she is closest to fellow newcomer Brandi Glanville.

“Some of the other girls, they right away started having issues with me,” she says. “Some of them I never had an in-depth conversation with.”

This won’t be Foster’s first foray into unscripted television.

She can be seen in Holland on the reality series “Hollywood Vrouwen” (Hollywood Women), about a group of Dutch women who live extravagant lives in Los Angeles.