Jillian Michaels Slams Oprah Winfrey, Claims Mogul Has 'Financial Incentive With Ozempic'
Jillian Michaels implied Oprah Winfrey may not be telling the entire truth when it comes to her use of weight-loss drugs.
After the media mogul, 69, admitted she shed pounds by using medication, the fitness guru, 49, alleged Winfrey may have a strong financial tie to the situation.
"Oprah has a financial incentive with Ozempic," Michaels claimed. "Oprah, I believe, is one of the biggest shareholders of WeightWatchers, and WeightWatchers is now in the Ozempic business."
"I believe [WeightWatchers] bought a company that provides access to these drugs, now there is a financial interest in these drugs. I think it's important to put that out there right off the bat," The Biggest Loser star added.
As OK! previously reported, Winfrey publicly revealed she was on weight loss drugs after years of trying to keep off the pounds in front of the entire world. "It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years," she noted in a recent interview. "I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself."
The Color Purple star explained how losing weight "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."
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"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," she said. "I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years."
However, the prescribed medication added a needed boost. "I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so d--- hard. I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me," Winfrey revealed, adding that she took the meds before Thanksgiving "because I knew I was going to have two solid weeks of eating, and "instead of gaining eight pounds like I did last year, I gained half a pound . . . It quiets the food noise."
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"I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing," the former talk show host emphasized. "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."
"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," she said.
Page Six conducted the interview with Michaels.