Looking back on her relationship with her weight, Oprah Winfrey admits that there were periods when it held her back or resulted in “hurtful” situations in the spotlight.
On the first edition of The Jamie Kern Lima podcast, Winfrey revealed that she gained weight almost immediately after revealing a significant amount of fat in an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show from November 1988.
“I lost that weight on [the all-liquid diet] Optifast without eating a thing for five solid months,” she said to Lima, the creator of IT Cosmetics and author of the best-selling book Worthy.
“I gained five pounds more weight after three days, and I gained ten pounds more weight after a week,” Winfrey, who turned 70 in January, stated.
Don Johnson, the Miami Vice star, invited me to a party the week before Christmas. I refused to go because I felt like I was too overweight.”
“I think I was 157 [lbs.] in the course of, like, a week and a half or two,” she remembered, having dropped from 145 [lbs.] on the day of the show. And the embarrassment began once more.
She also recalled how Keenan Ivory Wayans’ groundbreaking sketch comedy show, In Living Color, inspired “one of the most hurtful things” and how “making fun of my weight” was a national sport for 25 years.
She remembered a sketch from “In Living Color,” in which Kim Wayans mimicked Winfrey on the set of her talk show. “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,” the actress said.
“I was the woman, and the entire audience burst out laughing.”
“I have carried this weight thing to the point where I just feel like I just turned 70, and I’m not carrying it into the next decade,” Winfrey said to Lima. “We simply accepted that as a fact.”
She said, “I’m done with it,” and then went on to say, “I was judgmental because I have been so judged.” I have genuinely carried and endured the guilt of others, and I am unaware of anyone who has faced public condemnation more than I have.