Oprah Winfrey is getting candid about a lifelong battle that she says brought her to tears for "many days and nights" — her struggle with obesity and the intense public shaming that accompanied it.
In a series of recent interviews promoting her new book, Enough: Your Health, Your Weight and What It's Like To Be Free, the 71-year-old media icon is reflecting on what she calls "wasted years" of blaming herself for a medical condition .
For decades, Winfrey’s weight was a national talking point. She recalls being "publicly humiliated" by comedians and critics. "It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years," Winfrey told People magazine, noting that she initially accepted the ridicule because she thought she deserved it . She writes in Enough about the "humiliating moments," including jokes from David Letterman and Joan Rivers, which made her feel like "a running joke" .
Now, however, Winfrey says she has stopped punishing herself. The turning point came when she began taking a GLP-1 medication (a class of drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy) in 2023. She describes the experience as a "relief" and a "gift," revealing that the medication silenced the "food noise" in her brain almost immediately .
"I have regret that I didn’t discover it in 2013," Winfrey confessed to CBS Sunday Morning. "I think about the wasted time. The wasted time, the wasted sadness and shame about it. I think about the wasted years," she said, visibly emotional .
Winfrey admitted she initially resisted the medication, viewing it as "cheating" or "the easy way out"—a sentiment she now believes was fueled by diet culture . She has also publicly acknowledged her own role in perpetuating that culture, specifically pointing to a 1988 episode of her show where she pulled a wagon of fat to represent her
weight loss.
"I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in the diet culture," Winfrey writes. She now calls that famous TV moment one of her "biggest regrets" .
Today, Winfrey says she is down to 155 pounds and feels she is in "the best shape of her life," even better than when she was 40 and running marathons . She admits that the medication will likely be a "lifetime thing," akin to her
high blood pressure medication .
Despite her personal success, Winfrey has faced criticism and "slammed" on social media for using pharmaceutical help while serving as a former ambassador for Weight Watchers . However, she remains defiant, arguing that obesity is a disease—not a moral failing.
"All these years, I thought thin people just had more willpower," she said. "I know now that they were so wrong"
