Oprah Winfrey Reveals She Uses Weight-Loss Medication as a ‘Maintenance Tool’: ‘I’m Absolutely Done with the Shaming’ (Exclusive)

Oprah Winfrey is no stranger to watching her weight. Since going public, the icon’s physical journey has been featured in the media, on magazine covers and in episodes of her own hit talk show of the same name, which ran for 25 seasons.

“It was a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years,” Winfrey tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “I was guilty and ashamed, and I blamed and shamed myself.”

One painful moment occurred early in her career, when she landed on Mr. Blackwell’s harsh fashion critic’s list. “I was on the cover of a magazine and it said ‘Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy,'” recalls the co-producer of the new film.Purple. (Winfrey starred in the original 1985 film) “I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”

No more, she says.

Oprah Winfrey opens up about the moments that changed her life

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Winfrey, who turns 70 next month, is optimistic that she now knows how to maintain a healthy weight long-term and get rid of shame once and for all. Using a holistic approach that includes regular exercise and other lifestyle changes, Winfrey confirms that she has also added a weight-loss drug to her regimen.

The weight changes “took up five decades of space in my brain, yo-yoing and feeling like I just couldn’t beat this thing, believing that willpower was my failure,” says Winfrey, whose dogged rehabilitation after knee surgery in 2021 launched what in for the last two years he has been losing weight steadily.

Oprah Winfrey and Color Purple star Fantasia Barrino November 16, 2023

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“After knee surgery, I started walking and setting new distance goals every week. Eventually, I could walk three to five miles every day and 10 miles straight over the weekend,” she says. “I felt stronger, fitter and more alive than I had felt in years.”

Now, she says, “I eat my last meal at 4 p.m., drink a gallon of water a day, and use the WeightWatcher principles to count the points. I was aware [weight-loss] medication, but I felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. Now I don’t feel that way anymore.”

She adds, “I was actually recommending it to people long before I started using it myself.”

The turning point for Winfrey’s approach to the use of pharmaceutical aids itself came in July during a taped panel discussion with weight loss experts and clinicians, titled The State of Weight and part of the Life You Want Oprah Daily series.

Oprah Winfrey at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022.

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“I had the biggest aha along with a lot of people in that audience,” she recalled of the discussion, which was posted online in September. “I realized that I’ve been blaming myself for being overweight all these years, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower can control.”

She adds, “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”

Oprah Winfrey Says She Struggled With Thoughts Of Ozempic, Wegovy: ‘If I Take Drugs, It’s An Easy Way Out’

After coming to terms with the science, Winfrey says she “let go of my own shame about it” and consulted her doctor, who prescribed a weight-loss drug. “Now I use it when I feel I need it, as a management tool, not a yo-yo,” she says, declining to name the specific drug she takes.

“The fact that there is a medically approved prescription for weight control and health maintenance, during my lifetime, feels like a relief, like a redemption, like a gift, not something to hide behind and be ridiculed for again. I’m absolutely done with the embarrassment. by other people, especially me.”

Oprah Winfrey at the Essence Festival in June 2023.

Soul Brother/Soul B Photos/Shutterstock

Winfrey is aware of the buzz surrounding her body size, especially as the use of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro has become increasingly popular. But she stresses that it’s not a magic bullet or a one-size-fits-all solution.

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“That’s it,” she says of her comprehensive health and fitness routine. “I know everyone thought I was on it, but I’ve been working so damn hard. I know if I don’t work out and take care of all the other things, it doesn’t work for me.”

She took the drug before Thanksgiving “because I knew I was going to have two solid weeks of eating,” she says, and “instead of gaining eight pounds like last year, I gained half a pound. . . . It calms the food buzz.”

Although she’s seven pounds away from her goal weight of 160 pounds, Winfrey says it’s “not about numbers.” Instead, she’s content to build on the progress she’s made in the two years since the surgery. “It was a second attempt for me to live a more vital and vibrant life,” she says.

Oprah Winfrey at ELLE’s 2023 Women in Hollywood Celebration December 5, 2023

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“I live on a mountain in Hawaii, and there’s a big hill—I used to look out the window every morning and say, ‘God, one day I want to walk that mountain.’ Last year at Christmas I did it… It felt like redemption.”

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Source: HIS Education