Oprah Reveals She Stopped Using GLP-1s for 12 Months — and Shares Exactly Happened 

Oprah Winfrey admits she was “shaking” when she first publicly shared that she was using a GLP-1 weight-loss medication.

“I knew that admitting to being on medication was going to be a big freaking deal,” Winfrey says. “I knew I was going to get lots of pushback. And I did.”

What she didn’t expect was that she would later challenge herself just as strongly.

Less than six months after starting GLP-1 injections, Winfrey stopped taking the medication “cold turkey” on her 70th birthday in January 2024. “I tried to beat the medication,” she explains.

After decades of struggling with her weight, Winfrey decided to try the new class of drugs following an “aha moment” in July 2023 while filming a show about obesity with medical experts. “I came to understand that overeating doesn’t cause obesity. Obesity causes overeating,” she says. “That realization was mind-blowing and incredibly freeing.”

Even so, she felt compelled to prove she could maintain her weight without medical help. “I said, ‘I’m going to see if the science is right. I want to see if I can do without it.’”

She continued eating well and exercising after stopping the medication, confident she could defy the warnings. “Everyone said that if you get off the medication, you’ll immediately regain the weight.”

The gain wasn’t immediate, but over the next 12 months she put on 20 pounds. The experience changed her perspective. “It’s a lifetime thing,” she says. “I take medication for high blood pressure—if I stop that, my blood pressure goes up. I’ve realized the same is true for these medications. I’ve proven to myself that I need it.”

Winfrey, who has co-written a new book with Dr. Ania M. Jastreboff, director of the Yale Obesity Research Center, explains that without GLP-1 medication, her body constantly works to return to what Dr. Jastreboff calls the “Enough Point”—a weight range shaped by genetics and environment. For Winfrey, that number was 211 pounds, a weight at which she says she was not healthy, dealing with prediabetes and high cholesterol.

She typically injects the medication weekly and has chosen not to disclose the specific brand. The impact has been so significant that she has personally paid for weight-loss medication for several acquaintances who otherwise couldn’t afford it.

Still, Winfrey emphasizes that medication is a personal choice—and not the only path forward.

“If obesity runs in your family, I want people to know it’s not your fault,” she says. “We need to stop blaming people. Telling someone to just work out more and eat less is not the answer.” She adds that access to accurate information is what matters most. “Whatever you choose—medication or dieting—the biggest lesson for me was stopping the blame.”

Today, she says the shame is gone. “No more shame,” Winfrey says. “Let people say what they want.”

Her new book, Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like to Be Free, is set to release on Jan. 13 and is available for preorder wherever books are sold.