LA Sheriff: We're Looking Into Biggest Loser Drug Rumors
Kai Hibbard, former “Biggest Loser” contestant, stands for a photograph at Sunset Park in Airway Heights, Wash., on May 3, 2016. (Image via AP Photo/Young Kwak)
A New York Post exposé on alleged drug distribution on the Biggest Loser has now led to a probe by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, BuzzFeed reports. The investigation officially started last month after an unnamed journalist “advised Malibu/Lost Hills station personnel of a news report regarding unsubstantiated allegations of illegal narcotics use in the past on the set,” the sheriff’s release on the matter says, per People.
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In the Post story, a few contestants mentioned that people involved with the show had encouraged them to ingest the ADHD drug Adderall (weight loss can be a side effect) and other pills containing ephedra, which the FDA banned more than a decade ago.
Although the Post article contained a handful of former competitors bashing the show, there are those who have come to its defense, per the New York Daily News.
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“The Biggest Loser never made me or asked me to take anything illegal,” Vencent Van-zant Hickerson, a contestant on the show’s 12th season, wrote May 22 on Facebook, showing off his before and after pics. “Biggest Loser saved my life and through the things I learned I have helped countless others."
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The show has already responded, saying in a statement that the allegations are "without merit and false. The safety and wellbeing of our contestants is, and has always been, paramount.” It adds that the show has a “zero tolerance” policy toward weight-loss drugs. (The first woman to win on Biggest Loser talks about her own weight gain after the show.)
By Jenn Gidman
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This article originally appeared on Newser: LA Sheriff: We’re Looking Into Biggest Loser Drug Rumors
