Oprah Winfrey pulls back the curtain on her wellness routine, admitting to People that she’s taken weight-loss medication “as a tool to manage not yo-yoing.”
Winfrey, in a cover story for the magazine, did not name the specific medication in her interview but revealed that she uses it as she feels she needs it.
“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,” she said. “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.”
The co-producer of the new “The Color Purple” film, who has had a very public journey with her weight throughout her career, likened being “blamed and shamed” over her weight to a public sport where she was made fun of for 25 years. However, she said “she now has a better handle” on how to deal with a healthy weight.
“I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications, but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way,” Winfrey told People. “I was actually recommending it to people long before I was on it myself.”
The talk show host pointed to having “the biggest aha” during an Oprah Daily’s Life You Want series panel called The State of Weight earlier this year, where she opened up about weight loss.
“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. Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower ― it’s about the brain,” she said.
The media mogul’s comments come as several drugs that cause weight loss, including Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, have grown in demand.