‘Like a gift’: Oprah Winfrey says she uses weight-loss medication

(WJW) – While it’s known in polite company never to ask about someone’s weight, in American culture, we’ve been talking about Oprah Winfrey’s weight for decades.

And so has she.

“It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself.”

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Now, in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Oprah says she uses weight-loss medication as a maintenance tool to stay on top of things, and she says she’s done with the shame.

Oprah famously wheeled out a red wagon of fat on her show in 1988.

The wagon was filled with 67-pounds of animal fat, which was the amount of weight she had lost at the time.

Oprah later said it was her biggest on-air regret. “It was one of the biggest ego trips of my life,” she told Entertainment Tonight in 2011.

Fast-forward to 2023, Oprah says she has a better handle on how to maintain a healthy weight long-term.

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Like anyone who has worked a weight loss program, Oprah says she had to get rid of her own shame.

“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,” she told PEOPLE.

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

Oprah says her approach includes a lot of work, plus the weight-loss medication.

“I eat my last meal at 4 o’clock, drink a gallon of water a day, and use the WeightWatchers principles of counting points,” she shared.

“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,” Winfrey said.

Winfrey says she released her own shame about it when she reconciled the science.

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“I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,” she said.

She’s not naming the specific drug she takes.

Medications like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro have become popular weight-loss drugs in the last several years.

Oprah says she is 7 lbs. away from her goal weight, but she says “it’s not about the number.”

“It was a second shot for me to live a more vital and vibrant life,” she said.

Oprah turns 70 in January.

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