The former daytime talk show host remembers being the butt of the jokes because of her weight and admits she was hurt by the constant public ridicules.
- Dec 14, 2023
AceShowbiz - Oprah Winfrey has claimed making fun of her weight became "a public sport." The TV icon - who will mark her 70th birthday next month - has reflected on her body journey over the years and said she was frequently "blamed and shamed" for the way she looks.
"It was a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. 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," she told People.
Oprah recalled a magazine cover which branded her "Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy," admitting she felt conditioned to not be "angry" over the offensive tagline. She explained, "I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, 'Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy.' "
"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."
Over the summer, she joined a panel discussion with weight loss experts and clinicians s part of Oprah Daily's "Life You Want" series. She described the "State of Weight" talk as an "aha" moment in her life. She said, "I had the biggest aha along with many people in that audience."
"I realised 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 went onto be prescribed a weight-loss medication which she uses when she feels it's necessary "as a tool to manage not yo-yoing." She added, "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."
