Nearly two months after chef Jacob Bickelhaupt was arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife, Nadia Bickelhaupt, she's begun documenting her recovery journey on social media.
In early June, Jacob, the founder of several Michelin-starred restaurants, was arrested on felony charges of aggravated battery causing bodily harm and domestic battery after he allegedly beat his wife for several hours straight, causing her to suffer a seizure and leaving her with a subdural hematoma (a collection of blood outside the brain). His felony battery charges were later upgraded to attempted second-degree murder and false imprisonment.
Konro, the couple's chef's-table omakase establishment in West Palm Beach, has closed following his arrest. Florida's Michelin Guide recently stripped the restaurant of both its listing and its Michelin star.
While Jacob remains in the Palm Beach County jail without bond, Nadia — a sommelier and co-owner of their restaurant, Konro — has publicly documented her turbulent recovery, including multiple brain surgeries and ongoing complications, on Instagram.
According to Nadia's posts, she has undergone three brain surgeries since early June. In a recent video posted in late July, filmed from a hospital bed before surgery, her head is shaved, and a long scar runs across her scalp.
"Yeah, so this has been awful. But thank you guys for absolutely everything," she says as she fights back tears. "I'm so grateful, and you guys make me feel like I actually matter and I impacted some lives, which is huge for me. I'll be praying to God that this all works out and at some point I can move on."
After an initial brain surgery, Nadia was rushed to the ER in early July with a staph infection that required emergency surgery, according to a GoFundMe organized by a friend on her behalf. During the procedure, doctors also discovered a brain bleed.
In a July 22 Instagram post, Nadia revealed that she would soon undergo another brain surgery known as a craniectomy — a procedure where part of the skull is removed — to treat an infection. A week later, she confirmed in a post that the surgery had successfully taken place.
"The infection was more serious than expected, so it's a good thing the surgery happened when it did," a July 29 update on the GoFundMe reads. "[She's] currently in a lot of pain, with significant swelling and a black eye that's nearly swollen shut."
It's unclear whether Bickelhaupt is still in the hospital.
West Palm Beach Police took Jacob into custody in the early morning hours of June 2.
According to an arrest report, staff at St. Mary’s Medical Center, a hospital in West Palm Beach, had notified police that fire-rescue workers had brought an injured woman into the intensive care unit from Palm Beach International Airport, where she'd apparently had a seizure at a ticket counter while attempting to purchase a ticket to Denver, her hometown.
While the woman told police she'd been in a car accident, medical staff quickly realized that her injuries weren't consistent with that scenario, according to the report. Police observed that she had two blackened eyes, multiple bruises across her face, dried blood under her nostrils, and swelling around her face; her arms, shoulders, wrists, and hands were also bruised.
The incident marked Jacob's second domestic violence arrest in less than a decade.
In June 2017, Jacob assaulted Alexa Welsh, his ex-wife and business partner, in the parking lot of their two-Michelin-star fine-dining restaurant in Chicago, 42 Grams, dragging her by the hair and striking her with a bottle. Later that night, he posted a tweet from the restaurant's account announcing its closure. He later pleaded guilty to battery.
