Oprah Winfrey has claimed stores treated her with “condescension” when she weighed over 200 pounds.
The 68-year-old media mogul has been candid about her struggles with her weight over the years and she’s insisted people treated her differently when she was at the higher end of the scales.
Speaking on her Oprah Daily’s “The Life You Want Class: The State of Weight” panel, she said: “This is a world that has shamed people for being overweight forever. And all of us who’ve lived it know that people treat you differently, they just do. It’s that thing [in shops] where people are like, ‘Let me show you the gloves. Would you like to look at the handbags? “Because we know that there’s nothing in here for you.’ There is a condescension. There is stigma.”
Winfrey noted on the panel her weight issues have been a “recurring thing” and she believes her struggle has been “exploited” more than anyone else in the public eye.
“You all know I’ve been on this journey for most of my life. My highest weight was 237 lbs. I don’t know if there is another public person whose weight struggle has been exploited as much as mine over the years. You all have watched me diet and diet and diet. It’s a recurring thing because my body always seems to want to go back to a certain weight,” she said.
The former talk-show host also claimed she was “shamed in the tabloids every week about for 25 years” for “not having the willpower” when it came to her issues with her weight. But Winfrey admitted she hadn’t been tempted to use weight-loss drug Ozempic.
“Even when I first started hearing about the weight loss drugs, at the same time I was going through knee surgery, and I felt, ‘I’ve got to do this on my own.’ Because if I take the drug, that’s the easy way out,” she said.
