Oprah Winfrey reveals ‘hurt’ over being ‘body shamed for decades’ – as she finally confirms using weight loss drugs for 40lb transformation: ‘It was a public sport to make fun of me’

Oprah Winfrey has opened up about the tremendous hurt she felt when she was body shamed for decades.

The 69-year-oldstar, who came to fame for her daytime talk show, was one of the rounder personalities on television.

And haters used to troll her over been bigger, even though she carried her weight well and styled herself perfectly to show off her curves.

Now she is telling People she is plenty aware that she was being shamed all that time and had had to process that. ‘It was a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years,’ she told the publication.

And it was only recently that she realized she had been blaming herself all these years for being overweight. 

This comes after she finally admitted she has been using weight-loss medication for her dramatic body transformation – after previously denying she would ever take Ozempic or similar drugs to lose weight. 

Oprah Winfrey has opened up about the tremendous hurt she felt when she was body shamed for decades. The 69-year-oldstar, who came to fame for her daytime talk show, was one of the rounder personalities on television. Seen in 1992

This comes after she finally admitted she has been using weight-loss medication for her dramatic body transformation – after previously denying she would ever take Ozempic or similar drugs to lose weight. Seen Wednesday

‘The things that were said about me, said to me, around me, the jokes that were made. You could not get away with it in the slightest sense today,’ said the star.

‘I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy,’ Winfrey said of a cruel headline written early in her career.

‘I just accepted that as that’s what it is, and I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I felt shame. But it didn’t occur to me that I could even feel angry.

‘I swallowed the shame, and I accepted that it was my fault.’

She changed the way she looked at the shaming in July during Oprah Daily’s Life You Want series.

‘I had the biggest aha along with many people in that audience,’ 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.’

She then said: ‘Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.’

And haters used to troll her over been bigger, even though she carried her weight well and styled herself perfectly to show off her curves. Seen in 2000

Now she is telling People she is plenty aware that she was being shamed all that time and had had to process that. ‘It was a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years,’ she told the publication; seen in 2019

Winfrey said she studied up on obesity, talked to a doctor and went on meds.

Only after that did she ‘released my own shame about it.’

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

‘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. 

‘I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.’

The comes after Winfrey said she would not take Ozempic and similar drugs in the class of weight-loss medications because she viewed them as an ‘easy way out’ during a discussion with WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani.

And it was only recently that she realized she had been blaming herself all these years for being overweight. (seen left last week and right in 2019)

The star revealed she had taken the medication before Thanksgiving as she knew would have ‘two solid weeks of eating’ and credits the drug for causing her to only gain half a pound rather than eight pounds, adding it ‘quiets the food noise.’ 

Winfrey said she is now seven pounds away from her goal weight of 160lbs but said ‘it’s not about the number.’

She said undergoing knee surgery in 2021 kickstarted a journey for her to improve her health and live a ‘more vital and vibrant life.’ 

The broadcast icon said she now eats her last meal at 4pm, drinks a gallon of water a day and uses WeightWatchers principles of counting points, along with regular hikes.

She added that her fitness and health routine are integral to maintaining her weight loss saying: ‘It’s everything. I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. 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: ‘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.’

Winfrey said she was encouraged to use medical weight loss drugs after the taped panel conversation in July with weight loss experts and clinicians – which led to her ‘biggest aha moment.’ The conversation was released online in September and saw Winfrey staunchly denying she would ever take weight loss drugs.

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.

During the discussion, the experts insisted that obesity is a metabolic disease with some bodies ‘more predisposed to storing more fat’ – also known as adipose tissue.

She changed the way she looked at the shaming in July during Oprah Daily’s Life You Want series. ‘I had the biggest aha along with many people in that audience,’ 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.’ She then said: ‘Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain’; seen in 1992

In 1988, just two years after the launched the Oprah Winfrey Show, the TV legend revealed during an episode that she had lost 67 pounds in four months thanks to an all-liquid diet – and celebrated by wheeling out a wagon of fat onto the stage

‘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.”

‘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 concluded: ‘As a person who has been shamed for so many years [about my weight], I am just sick of it.’

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