Oprah Winfrey has confessed that weight loss medication helped her dramatic body transformation.
In case you missed it, the celebrated TV icon recently stunned on the red carpet for the premiere of Warner Bros' The Color Purple in a remarkable, violet gown that highlighted her curves and showed off her impressive physique.
The 69-year-old also left fans in awe at the third Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles a few days earlier.
Due to her recent public appearances, there has been a lot of commotion surrounding Oprah's health and fitness, with many questioning whether she’s joined the list of celebrities using weight loss medication to slim down.
Now, in a recent interview with PEOPLE magazine, the icon has shared the secret behind her slimmed-down transformation
The co-producer - who has long been gossiped about for her weight - told the publication that she was coming clean as she was "done with the shaming" after losing more than 40lbs in recent months.
"It was a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself," she said, before recalling a heartbreaking moment during the early years of her career when she was blasted by fashion critic Mr. Blackwell,
"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," she said.
Oprah, who turns 70 next month, revealed that her fluctuating weight "occupied five decades of space in my brain, yo-yo-ing and feeling like why can’t I just conquer this thing, believing willpower was my failing".
The Golden Globes winner has shared that she now has a better handle on how to maintain a healthy weight long-term and freed herself of remorse once and for all. She added that after rehabilitating from knee surgery in 2021, she began hiking regularly and making other lifestyle modifications.
"I eat my last meal at 4 o'clock, drink a gallon of water a day, and use the Weight Watchers principles of counting points. I had an awareness of medications but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way," she said.
Back in September, the stalwart TV host confessed in her The Life You Want series that she once contemplated using Ozempic and similar drugs in the class of weight-loss medications but ultimately decided against it.
"One of the things I carried so much shame for, and even when I first started hearing about the weight loss drugs, at the same time I was going through knee surgery and I felt, 'I've got to do this on my own because if I take the drug, that's the easy way out,'" she said at the time, per Daily Mail.
"There's a part of me that feels - like I think a lot of people feel with bariatric surgery - that I've got to do it the hard way, I've got to keep climbing the mountains, I've got to keep suffering and I've got to do that because otherwise I somehow cheated myself," she added.
However, Oprah reflected on her own words to PEOPLE and admitted that she "had been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control," adding: "Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower - it's about the brain."
The television personality "released [her] own shame about it" after researching the medication, and contacted her doctor, who went on to prescribe a weight-loss medication that has helped her in her journey.
"I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yo-ing," she says, choosing not to reveal the specific drug she takes.
"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 continued. "I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself."
While the admission might not come as shocking to most, Oprah expressed that she "worked so damn hard" and stated that the medication plays a small part in her health and fitness routine. Now, she weighs 167 pounds - seven pounds shy of her goal weight of 160.
Talking about her new lease on life, Oprah concluded: "In Hawaii, I live on a mountain, and there’s this big hill - I used to look out the window every morning and say, 'God, one day I want to walk up that mountain.' Last year over Christmas I did it… It felt like redemption."
