Showrunner Shonda Rhimes is the latest celebrity to be accused of using weight loss drugs following her slimmed-down appearance on a prominent magazine cover.
The woman behind hit shows like “Scandal,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgeton,” was spotlighted in Variety’s “Power of Women” issue. In the interview, she talked about her reigning success in television, but fans seem to only be taking note of her slimmed-down appearance.
The cover depicts Rhimes looking noticeably slimmer in an all-black jumpsuit with a pearl belt. Many on social media immediately locked in on the extreme weight loss, noting how good she looked.
“Yes! Shonda & that weight loss!” one person wrote in excitement.
Meanwhile, others began speculating on how she got in shape.
“Ozempy down. IKTR Shonda,” one person wrote on the X platform, as another joked, “Oprah talked her into it.” Another person claimed, “Ozempic worked wonders on Shonda.”
Ozempy down.
— k a r y. (@itsKARY_) April 29, 2024
IKTR Shonda. https://t.co/TStDA38Bdf
Rhimes has previously shared her weight loss journey and in 2015, she said that she changed her lifestyle, which helped her to lose over 117 lbs.
“I just decided I was gonna get it together and get healthy. I have some little kids, and I want to be around for them,” the 54-year-old mother of three girls told Extra.
She said, “I changed everything I ate — and I hated all of that — and then I hate exercising, and I did that too, and I hated it the whole time.”
Two years later, in her Shondaland newsletter, she revealed that she had lost close to 150 pounds.
“I did not do it because I thought I would become beautiful like in the movies. I did it because I could not walk up a short flight up stairs without stopping to take a break and wiping sweat from my brow. I did it because my body was physically rebelling against the brain that had been ignoring it for so long,” she explained.
Rhimes is not the first entertainer to be accused of losing weight with the assistance of drugs usually prescribed to patients with type 2 Diabetes.
Recently, after losing 100 pounds, people have accused Busta Rhymes of using Ozempic. In his Men’s Health Magazine cover story, he said that he ballooned up to 340 pounds after losing his father in 2014 and never properly grieving his death.
“I just kept drinking, smoking, eating bad — the whole nasty — and recording a bunch of songs just to escape the pain,” he told the outlet.
The “I Know What You Want” rapper claimed to participate in a workout regimen where he works out twice a day, goes to the sauna, does cryotherapy, which is considered cold therapy, as well as eating healthier, drinking more water and getting the proper amount of rest.
Still, fans accused Busta of getting a little help also, saying, “He on that Zemp?”
Rumors continue to burble around billionaire Oprah Winfrey using Ozempic. While the media mogul previously criticized weight loss drugs as “the easy way out,” she shifted her perspective in 2023 after ending her association with the weight loss brand Weight Watchers.
Oprah now acknowledges the value of weight loss drugs in aiding individuals to achieve and sustain their desired size. Among the popular options on the market that could serve as tools for weight loss are Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.
However, the “Color Purple” star has not revealed which specific drug of choice she uses.
