URBAN HOLLYWOOD
Oprah Winfrey says public comments about her weight have been deeply hurtful.
The media mogul sat down for an interview on the Tuesday, June 25 episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima” podcast, and discussed the shame she’s felt when comedians, fashion experts and magazine writers commented on her weight.
“Making fun of my weight was a national sport for 25 years,” she said. “The best comedians did it. The highest comedians did it, people with their [own] shows did it. It was just accepted that you could make fun of me and my weight.”
Winfrey said she’ll never forget being mocked on 1990s sketch comedy series, In Living Color.
“One of the most hurtful things was In Living Color had done a skit where the woman was doing something and she just kept eating and getting fatter and fatter and fatter, and the comedy bit was that eventually, she just exploded,” she recalled.
Comedian Kim Wayans portrayed Winfrey in the skit, which showed the comic hosting a talk show while simultaneously roasting chickens on a rotisserie, and stuffing food in her mouth.
“The whole audience fell out and the woman was me,” Winfrey said.
The former talk show host noted that she’s carried the shame surrounding her weight for years, but said she refuses to carry it into the future.
“I just recently turned 70 and I’m not carrying it into the next decade,” she said. “I’m done with it.”
Winfrey later wiped away tears while recalling her struggles with weight. She also repeated a story about the humiliation that came from being described as “bumpy, lumpy and downright dumpy” on a magazine cover.
The mogul previously told the story on an ABC News weight loss special that aired earlier this year, and said the magazine cover was so hurtful that she turned to a liquid diet and starved herself. She quickly shed 67 pounds on the diet, but gained it back when she resumed eating solid foods.
“The next day, y’all, the very next day, I started to gain it back,” she said.
Winfrey has admitted using an unnamed weight loss medication as a “maintenance tool.” On the ABC special, she interviewed two leading physicians in the field of weight loss, who said obesity is a disease, “not a matter of willpower.”
Winfrey told the podcast host that moment changed her life and her way of thinking.
Watch the interview below:
