Jackie Goldschneider Says 'a Lot' of Real Housewives Stars Use Ozempic: 'I'm Horrified by It'
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Santiago Felipe/Getty Jackie Goldschneider at the 'Legends Ball 2022 BravoCon'
Jackie Goldschneider is maintaining her stance on the misuse of the type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star appeared on Page Six's Virtual Reali-Tea podcast and explained that she's "horrified" how many people are taking Ozempic, an FDA-approved prescription medication for people with type 2 diabetes. It's one of the brand names for semaglutide, which works in the brain to impact satiety.
Taken once a week by injection in the thigh, stomach or arm, the medication has recently been trending on social media and some people have used it for weight loss, even though they don't have diabetes or clinical obesity.
"I can talk about Ozempic all day. It gets me so fired up," Goldschneider, 46, said. "I'm horrified by it. I'm not so much horrified by people wanting to lose weight — that has always been a universal thing — but I'm very very scared of what will happen if and when people have to go off this drug."
"It's just going to be a massive number of people who gain a huge amount of weight and suddenly don't know what to do with themselves. I'm just afraid of that day. There's going to be a lot of people with eating disorders," she continued, noting her recovery from a 18-year eating disorder. "You start dropping massive amounts of weight. That's so addicting. That's how I spiraled into anorexia. You get addicted to this new body and to the attention that comes with it."
Getty Man preparing semaglutide Ozempic injection
Goldschneider said Ozempic is a "scary drug" because of those who only use it just "so that they can be thin and glamorous." She added that it's sad people feel as though they have to rely on trends like this.
The reality star then clarified that she thinks it's "all fine" for those who use Ozempic because they have type 2 diabetes or are morbidly obese and actually need the medication.
As someone who struggled with anorexia, Goldschneider said that some of her fellow Housewives stars' misuse of Ozempic made it difficult to get past her eating disorder.
"It made my recovery harder, from a selfish standpoint, because I wanted to come back into a world where everyone around me was eating and loving food and enjoying life," she explained on the podcast. "I wanted to come back to that and I didn't because a lot of people in the Housewives world are on Ozempic. A lot of my friends are in the Housewives world, so it was tough for me to come back and suddenly no one's eating when we go out to dinner."
Goldschneider noted that she wasn't going to mention the names of any stars on Ozempic because she "looked up to some people" who she thought "had a very normal relationship with food" but now rely on the drug.
RELATED: Remi Bader Says She 'Gained Double the Weight Back' After Stopping Weight-Loss Drug Ozempic
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Goldschneider first opened up about Ozempic last month by commenting on a PEOPLE article about the medication and its recent popularity. She wrote that Ozempic was "an eating disorder in a needle."
Real Housewives of Orange County star Tamra Judge quickly responded to her comment adding, "That's what I said! I can't believe anyone would put this in their body for anything other than diabetes. It's not a forever thing and when these girls stop they will go into depression or severe eating disorder!"
Goldschneider then said the current trend is "sad and sickening" and she "can't imagine what will happen if people need to suddenly stop."
Ania Jastreboff, M.D., PhD., an obesity medicine physician scientist at Yale University, previously told PEOPLE that for those who use drugs like Ozempic — or its counterpart Wegovy, which is prescribed for clinical obesity — they have to continue taking the medications if they want to maintain the weight loss because diabetes and obesity are chronic conditions.
