20 celebrities who publicly discussed GLP1 medications

Few medications have crossed from the prescription pad into the cultural bloodstream as quickly as the GLP1 class. Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, Zepbound — drugs that were, only a few years ago, the clear domain of endocrinologists and obesity specialists — are now discussed at dinner parties, joked about on late-night television, dissected on TikTok, and referenced in fashion-week coverage. Somewhere between the first whispered 'is she on it?' and the first awards-show monologue making it the punchline, a private medical category became a public cultural moment.

Celebrities did not invent that shift, but they accelerated it. Some spoke openly, on the record, with the kind of detail that pulled the conversation out of speculation and into ordinary language. Others stayed clear and became the subject of speculation themselves. A few used humor — sometimes graciously, occasionally less so — to lance the awkwardness of a culture trying to talk about something it did not yet know how to talk about. Together, intentionally or not, they helped move GLP1 medications from a niche clinical category into one of the defining wellness stories of the decade.

This is not a list designed to shame, expose, or speculate. The people gathered here are public figures who have, in their own words and in mainstream media, discussed, confirmed, referenced, or joked about GLP1 medications. Their honesty — and in some cases their careful silence — is part of how the broader public learned that these medications existed, what they did, and that taking them was not, as the old framing went, a moral failure.

What follows is a steady look at 20 of those figures, the cultural forces their openness unlocked, and the wider conversation the GLP1 era is still teaching the world to have.

The rise of 'Hollywood Shots'

The phrase 'Hollywood Shot' did not come from a marketing department. It came from waiting rooms, group chats, and a handful of viral posts in 2022 and 2023, when journalists and stylists began noticing the same clear pattern: people in the entertainment industry — actors, executives, presenters, agents — were losing notable amounts of weight on a similar timeline, with a similar softening of the face, and with the same vague answers about it. The medications themselves were not new. Semaglutide had been approved for diabetes as Ozempic since 2017 and as Wegovy for weight management in 2021. What was new was the speed at which the entertainment world adopted them, and the speed at which that adoption became a story.

Hollywood has always steadily experimented with whatever the era's most effective weight-loss tool happened to be — diuretics in one decade, stimulants in another, surgical intervention in a third. The GLP1 era is different in one important sense: the tool actually works, durably, for a wide range of bodies, with a side-effect profile that is real but manageable for most users. That changes the cultural math. A pattern that might once have been dismissed as a passing fad began to look, very quickly, like a permanent recalibration of what bodies in entertainment would look like — and, by extension, what the rest of the world would be steadily invited to compare themselves to.

'Hollywood Shots' became a useful shorthand for that recalibration: not a specific drug, but the cultural fact of celebrities using a class of medications that was rapidly leaving the clinic and entering everyday life. The phrase carried the older glamour of Hollywood and the newer ambivalence of a public that was not sure whether to be impressed, suspicious, envious, or relieved.

Openness versus secrecy

The most interesting fault line in the celebrity GLP1 story has been less about who used the medications and more about who chose to discuss them. The early years of the era split public figures into roughly three camps. The openly honest, who described their experience in interviews and essays with surprising directness. The lightly acknowledging, who joked about it on talk shows or made oblique references without inviting a deeper conversation. And the carefully silent, who said nothing — and, in some cases, became the engine of the speculation industry that grew up around the topic.

Each posture had a logic. Openness reduced the stigma other patients were steadily carrying. Light acknowledgment defused the gossip without yielding the full narrative. Silence preserved privacy. None of these positions was wrong — public figures owe the public many things, but a detailed prescription history is not one of them. What the spectrum revealed, though, was the awkward stage the broader culture was in: still treating weight as a moral question rather than a medical one, still readier to suspect than to ask, still unsure how to receive the honest answer when it arrived.

The figures profiled below sit at different points on that spectrum. Most have spoken on the record. A few have spoken obliquely. None are included on the basis of speculation alone.

Twenty figures who moved the conversation

Each of the entries that follows is grounded in publicly available, on-the-record discussion. Where a figure has confirmed use, that is noted. Where a figure has spoken in more general or humorous terms, that is noted too. Nothing here is intended to make a clinical claim about any individual.

1. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey's December 2023 interview in People magazine, in which she confirmed using a GLP1 medication as part of a long-term weight-management approach, was widely treated as the cultural turning point. She framed the decision in the language of relief rather than shame, calling the medication a tool she wished had existed during the decades she spent on televised diets. Her follow-up primetime special, 'An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution,' did more in a single broadcast to legitimize GLP1 medications in the eyes of a general audience than years of medical-journal coverage had managed. For many viewers, it was the first time the conversation arrived without judgment attached.

2. Elon Musk

Elon Musk's 2022 reply on X confirming his use of Wegovy and intermittent fasting was, in retrospect, one of the earliest mainstream celebrity acknowledgments of the medication by its brand name. He answered the question with characteristic terseness — fasting, Wegovy — and moved on. Coming from a figure whose followers number in the hundreds of millions, the post functioned less as a personal disclosure than as an unintended product launch. Pharmacies reported a spike in inquiries in the days that followed. It was, for many ordinary readers, the first time they had seen the word 'Wegovy' attached to a person they recognized.

3. Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer has spoken about Ozempic with the directness her stand-up audience would expect. In a 2023 interview with Howard Stern and in subsequent press, she described trying the medication, finding the side effects intolerable for her, and stopping. Her contribution to the conversation was less about endorsement and more about the unsexy reality that GLP1 medications do not work for every body, and that the side-effect profile — particularly the early-week nausea — is real. Her honesty about discontinuation may, in some ways, have been more useful to readers than another success story.

4. Sharon Osbourne

Sharon Osbourne has discussed her use of Ozempic openly in multiple interviews, including her caution about losing too much weight too quickly. She has described being unable to stop the loss as easily as she had anticipated, and has urged readers to take the medication seriously rather than casually. Her perspective added a useful counterweight to the broader cultural narrative that the medications are an unalloyed wellness accessory. Her account was a reminder that they are, in fact, medications — with effects that should be monitored.

5. Whoopi Goldberg

On The View, Whoopi Goldberg confirmed in 2024 that she had used a GLP1 medication, framing it as a tool she had decided to try after years of complicated relationships with diet culture. Her comments were notable for their matter-of-fact tone — neither defensive nor evangelical — which lent the conversation, on a show watched by millions of daytime viewers, a quality of ordinariness that the topic had often lacked.

6. Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson has discussed using a GLP1-class medication that, in her words, was not Ozempic but worked on a similar mechanism, alongside dietary changes and walking. She has been candid in interviews and on her own talk show about the difficulty of public scrutiny of her body, and about the relief of finding a tool that worked after years of less-than-helpful suggestions. Her openness about the cultural pressure women in entertainment face around weight gave the broader story a humanizing register.

7. Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson, whose weight-loss journey predated the most public phase of the GLP1 era, has discussed in her memoir and in subsequent press the role that one of these medications played in a later phase of her maintenance. Her account is useful because it captures the now-common pattern of a person beginning with non-medication approaches and adding a GLP1 medication later — a sequence many readers will recognise in their own lives.

8. Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler's contribution to the conversation has been characteristically pointed. She has spoken on her podcast and in interviews about having been prescribed Ozempic by a doctor 'for fun,' a comment she later reflected on with more nuance, and about her broader concern that the medication was being handed out too casually in some Los Angeles circles. The mixture of personal disclosure and cultural critique she offered helped surface a conversation about prescribing norms that the medical community itself had been having more steadily.

9. Tracy Morgan

Tracy Morgan has joked openly on The Tonight Show about using Ozempic and losing a meaningful amount of weight, attributing the change to the medication with the kind of disarming directness that comedy permits. His acknowledgment, framed as a joke but clearly grounded in fact, helped take some of the awkwardness out of the topic for audiences who might otherwise have viewed it as a women's-magazine story. It was, in its own way, an act of normalization.

10. Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O'Donnell has discussed her use of Mounjaro on social media and in interviews, including her decision to begin the medication and the changes she has noticed since. She has spoken with characteristic frankness about the long history of public commentary on her body, and about the relative peace that finding a tool that worked has brought her. Her openness has resonated particularly with audiences who remember the decades of harsh tabloid coverage she endured.

11. Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates spoke publicly in 2024 about her significant weight loss, attributing it in part to Ozempic alongside lifestyle changes. Her interviews handled the topic with the seriousness one would expect from an actress who has spent decades navigating Hollywood's complicated relationship with women's bodies. Her account, less viral than some others, did important clear work for older audiences who had not previously seen themselves reflected in the GLP1 conversation.

12. Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley has discussed his use of Mounjaro on Inside the NBA and in subsequent interviews, with the same plainspoken candour his audience knows. His acknowledgment broadened the cultural footprint of the conversation into sports media, where the topic had previously been handled more obliquely. Coming from a figure who had been publicly transparent about weight struggles for years, his framing — as a tool that finally worked — landed with particular force.

13. Heather Gay

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay has been one of the more candid voices in reality television about her use of a GLP1 medication, discussing the experience in interviews and on her podcast. The Housewives universe, in general, has become an unexpected and unusually honest forum for the GLP1 conversation, with multiple cast members across franchises speaking on the record. Gay's contribution has been part of that broader reality-TV openness.

14. Dolores Catania

Dolores Catania of The Real Housewives of New Jersey has spoken publicly about using Mounjaro and the changes she experienced. Her interviews emphasised the medication as part of a wider approach rather than a standalone solution, and she has discussed both the benefits and the side effects with the kind of detail that helps demystify the experience for viewers considering whether the medication might be right for them.

15. Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi

Shahs of Sunset alumna Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi has been notably open on social media about her use of a GLP1 medication, including the realities of the side effects and the emotional dimension of the change. Her transparency in posts and interviews has helped move the conversation into a younger, more digitally native audience, where much of the everyday GLP1 discussion now actually lives.

16. Remi Bader

Content creator Remi Bader has spoken with unusual emotional clarity about her experience with a GLP1 medication, the binge-eating patterns she had been managing before, and the complicated feelings that followed her weight loss. Her conversation with Jay Shetty in 2024 was widely shared because it captured something the celebrity coverage had often missed: that the medication can clear patterns the user did not always realise they were carrying, and that the psychological adjustment is sometimes the harder part of the journey.

17. Fat Joe

The rapper Fat Joe has discussed his use of a GLP1-class medication in interviews and on his platform, with the same blend of warmth and candour his audience has come to expect. His comments helped broaden the conversation into hip-hop and broader Black media spaces, where the topic, like in many communities, had often been navigated more privately. His openness was part of a wider expansion of who, culturally, was permitted to be in the conversation at all.

18. Tori Spelling

Tori Spelling has discussed on her podcast and in interviews her use of a GLP1 medication, the side effects she encountered, and the broader context of public scrutiny of her body that has accompanied her career. Her contribution has been less about endorsement and more about texture — the messy, honest detail of what the early weeks on the medication actually feel like for some users.

19. Stephen Fry

British actor and author Stephen Fry has spoken publicly about using Mounjaro, with the careful, considered cadence his readers know from his memoirs. His discussion, including on the podcast Lorraine and in interviews, framed the medication as part of a long, complicated personal history with weight and food — and as a tool he had decided, after consideration, to use. Coming from a figure widely respected for thoughtfulness, his openness carried particular weight in British media.

20. Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams has been openly transparent in interviews and on social media about his use of Mounjaro and his broader experience with weight, mental health, and the long shadow that pop stardom cast on his body image. His honesty, like Fry's, has carried particular cultural weight in the UK, where the GLP1 conversation has been slower to move into the mainstream than in the United States. His framing — as a person finally finding a tool that helped after decades of trying — has resonated with many listeners.

The social-media obsession

Outside the on-the-record interviews, a parallel conversation grew up almost entirely on TikTok, X, and Instagram. Amateur internet sleuths catalogued changing faces in red-carpet photos. Plastic surgeons turned 'Ozempic face' into a content category. Wellness creators offered before-and-afters that may or may not have been on-label. By 2024, the most viewed GLP1 content on social platforms was no longer produced by health professionals or by celebrities themselves, but by users, fans, and observers building a folk taxonomy of weight loss in real time.

Some of that conversation was genuinely useful: ordinary users sharing what their first week on the medication actually felt like, how they handled side effects, what they ate when nothing appealed. Some of it was less useful: speculation about people who had not spoken, framing private bodies as public puzzles to be solved. The speculation culture was not new — celebrity bodies have always been treated as commons — but the GLP1 era gave it a new vocabulary and a new urgency. For the first time, the speculation was also, in many cases, a question about who could afford a particular tool.

TikTok in particular played an unusual role in shaping the everyday vocabulary of the GLP1 era. Terms like 'food noise,' 'Ozempic face,' 'maintenance dose,' and 'Hollywood Shot' moved through the platform faster than they moved through any medical channel. For many users, their first real explanation of how the medications worked came from a creator they followed, not from a doctor. That has cultural costs and benefits the medical world is still working through.

Public backlash and the question of access

As the celebrity disclosures multiplied, a parallel and increasingly forceful counter-conversation emerged. Critics argued, with some justice, that a class of medications originally developed for type 2 diabetes was being absorbed by a private private health market that could afford to pay out of pocket, while patients with the clinical indication were facing shortages and supply disruptions. The optics of a thinner red carpet against the backdrop of pharmacy queues was, for many, the defining contradiction of the early GLP1 era.

The backlash also had a cultural component. Some commentators worried that the visibility of celebrity use was steadily reintroducing thinness as the default aesthetic, after a decade of slow, hard-won movement towards a broader range of body representations. Others argued the opposite — that openly discussing a medical treatment for a chronic condition was the actual de-stigmatisation, and that pretending the medications did not exist would have done more to reinforce the old shame than to dismantle it.

Both arguments contain something true. The medications are powerful tools, the supply situation has improved but was real, the cultural pressure on bodies is real, and the de-stigmatisation of a chronic condition has been real too. The honest summary is that the GLP1 era is unfolding alongside, not in spite of, these tensions. Celebrity culture did not create them. It made them harder to look away from.

'The O Word' and the normalisation of obesity treatment

Oprah Winfrey's framing of GLP1 medications in her 2024 primetime special introduced what some commentators have since called 'The O Word' conversation — the deliberate, careful reframing of obesity as a chronic condition rather than a personal failure, and of medication for it as a legitimate, long-term treatment rather than a moral shortcut. That framing was not, in itself, new. Obesity-medicine clinicians had been making the case for decades, with little public traction. What the GLP1 era added was a class of medications that worked well enough, for enough people, that the framing finally had something to anchor to.

Celebrity disclosures accelerated that shift. When public figures who had been the subject of decades of body commentary spoke openly about using a medication for a condition, it became substantially harder to argue, in public, that the condition was not real or that treatment for it was unserious. The conversation did not become tidy — it is still actively unfolding — but it became, for the first time in a long time, recognisably medical.

That is, ultimately, the more durable contribution celebrity openness has made. Not the individual disclosures, which are footnotes, but the cumulative weight of them: a public conversation that has slowly, unevenly, begun to treat obesity as the chronic, complicated, treatable condition the medical community has long understood it to be.

A final reflection on the GLP1 era

The celebrity story is, in the end, a smaller story than the broader one it sits inside. Millions of ordinary people now take GLP1 medications. Their experiences — the relief, the side effects, the maintenance years, the long clear recalibration of their relationship with food — are the real cultural fact. The celebrities profiled here are, at best, a kind of opening chapter. The longer story is being written in homes, in clinics, in honest conversations between partners, parents, and friends.

What the celebrity moment has provided is a vocabulary, a permission, and a softening. A vocabulary, because phrases like 'food noise' and 'maintenance dose' now travel easily across kitchen tables. A permission, because the public disclosures have made it harder for ordinary patients to feel they should hide a legitimate medical treatment. And a softening, because the most thoughtful celebrity voices have helped move the conversation from suspicion towards something closer to compassion.

GLP1 medications will, almost certainly, be remembered as one of the defining health and body-image stories of this era. The celebrity chapter of that story is largely written. The longer chapter — the everyday, unglamorous, durable one — is just beginning, and it belongs to the readers, not to the red carpet.

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