Oprah Winfrey opened up to PEOPLE in an interview published on December 13, and the 69-year-old media queen revealed that she uses weight loss medication. “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and, particularly, myself,” Oprah noted before recalling the harsh scrutiny she received over the years for her weight.
“It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years,” the former host of The Oprah Winfrey show said. “I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself. … 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.”
Oprah explained that weight changes “occupied five decades of space in my brain, yo-yoing and feeling like why can’t I just conquer this thing, believing willpower was my failing.” She also pointed out that she once saw a headline that called her, “Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy.”
“I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt,” the Color Purple producer said. “I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”
Oprah explained that she “had the biggest ‘aha’ [moment] along with many people” after learning 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.”
“Obesity is a disease,” she clarified. “It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.” Therefore, going on a weight loss medication helped her health journey. “I was actually recommending it to people long before I was on it myself,” she added.
The former talk show host is aware of the gossip surrounding popular weight loss medications, such as Ozempic. However, she pointed out that she “worked so damn hard” in order to maintain her exercise regimen and healthy diet.
“I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me,” she said. “After knee surgery, I started hiking and setting new distance goals each week. I could eventually hike three to five miles every day and a 10-mile straight-up hike on weekends. I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years. … I eat my last meal at 4 o’clock, drink a gallon of water a day, and use the WeightWatchers principles of counting points. 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.”