Oprah Winfrey recently admitted to using a weight-loss medication to maintain her weight after fans speculated that the media mogul was using Ozempic, which is a popular drug often used by celebrities.
Winfrey struggled with her weight throughout the two-decade-plus run of her syndicated talk show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and became the butt of numerous cruel jokes by comedians on late-night television.
The former talk show host was previously slammed for shaming weight loss drugs and calling them “the easy way out.” But now she’s opening up about her weight-loss journey, and she feels “relieved” that a weight-loss drug now exists to help people lose and maintain their weight.
“It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself,” Winfrey said in a interview with People magazine published this week. “I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, ‘Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy.’ I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”
Although Winfrey admitted to using a weight-loss drug, she did not specify which one. Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are the three of the most popular drugs people are currently using for weight loss. Wegovy is the only one approved for weight loss while Ozempic and Mounjaro were created to treat diabetes but patients also found them effective for losing weight.
“I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,” she continued. “The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for. I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.”
The 69-year-old’s latest weight-loss journey began after having knee surgery back in 2021 and she began hiking. She also had an “aha” moment during a taping of Oprah Daily’s “The Life You Want” series last July. Winfrey’s panel included weight loss experts and clinicians for an episode titled “The State of Weight” as she learned about weight-loss prescription drugs.
“I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control,” she said. “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”
After Winfrey lost 67 pounds by starving herself on a liquid diet in 1988, she brought out a wagon of fat during an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to show viewers how much extra weight she’d been carrying on her frame.
She had weighed more than 200 pounds at the time and whittled herself down on the Optifast diet, which enabled her to get into her old size 10 in Calvin Klein jeans. Unfortunately, she gained the weight back and has continued to struggle with her weight throughout her career.
Winfrey now incorporates exercise into her routine and can hike several miles per day. She also drinks one gallon of water daily and uses a WeightWatchers-style approach of counting points. “I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years,” she said of her exercise routine.
Winfrey is only a few pounds away from her goal of 160 pounds and noted that the prescription weight-loss drug isn’t a magic solution for her and stresses the importance of healthy living. “The Color Purple” producer also noted that the drug helped her to only gain a half-pound over Thanksgiving as opposed to “gaining eight pounds like I did last year.”
“It’s everything,” she said. “I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me.”
Fans reacted on social media, and most didn’t seem upset that Winfrey is using a prescription drug to maintain her weight after seeing her struggle for so many years.
One fan wrote, “Oprah is on Ozempic and still found a way to push weight watcher points. She gone find some way to bring press to her businesses. She’s a true entrepreneur lol.” Another fan replied, “Were people really surprised that Oprah is on Ozempic? Oprah been trying to lose weight since I was a kid. And I’m 40!”
Winfrey has served as an ambassador for Weight Watchers since 2015. She also serves as a board member and adviser and owns 10 percent of the company.
