Oprah Winfrey reveals taking GLP-1 weight-loss drug made her realize what she got wrong about ‘thin people’

Oprah Winfrey says taking a GLP-1 drug such as Ozempic and Wegovy has changed her entire perspective on “thin people.”

The media icon, 70, took to her podcast last week to share her experience with an undisclosed type of GLP-1 drug that she began taking in 2023.

A type 2 diabetes medication that can also aid in weight loss, GLP-1 scripts include the well-known names Ozempic and Wegovy.

While discussing the use, safety and efficacy of GLP-1 drugs with Dr. Ania Jastreboff on the Jan. 14 episode of “The Oprah Podcast,” the Harpo Productions founder said her entire way of thinking about how “thin” people approach food was all wrong.

“One of the things that I realized the very first time I took a GLP-1 was that all these years I thought that thin people — those people — had more willpower,” Winfrey told Dr. Jastreboff, adding that she believed, “They ate better foods. They were able to stick to it longer. They never had a potato chip.”

However, after starting on a GLP-1, Winfrey came to believe that “willpower” was in fact an absence of intrusive hunger thoughts, which is often called “food noise.”

“And then I realized the very first time I took the GLP-1 that, they’re not even thinking about it,” the Oscar-winner said of “thin people” and food.

“They’re eating when they’re hungry and they’re stopping when they’re full.”

That mindset “doesn’t work if you have obesity,” Winfrey added.

While discussing how obesity is a disease, Winfrey also shared how her struggles with weight loss played out in the public eye and took a toll on her.

“Every week [I was] exploited by the tabloids,” she said, referring to the years she spent hosting her hit daytime talkshow. “Anytime any comedian wanted to make fun or make a joke about it, they would make a joke about it. And I accepted it because I thought I deserved it.”

The media queen also confessed that she was reluctant to take a GLP-1 drug because she felt it was “the easy way out.” That changed after a special on weight loss with experts and clinicians that she taped in July 2023. The panel discussion left her with her “biggest aha moment” about the medication.

“I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications [before], but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way,” she said.

“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 continued, “This is a world that has shamed people for being overweight forever and all of us who have lived it know that people just treat you differently. They just do.”

“And I am Oprah Winfrey and I know all that comes with that and I get treated differently if I am 200 plus pounds versus under 200 pounds.”

Winfrey added, “There is a condescension. There is a stigma.”