Kelly Clarkson Talks Losing ‘A Lot’ of Weight on Prescription Medication: ‘Everybody Thinks It’s Ozempic, But It’s Not’

Gil Kaufman
·4 min read
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Kelly Clarkson and Whoopi Goldberg bonded on Monday (May 13) over their recent weight loss journeys. While appearing on Clarkson’s daytime talker, Kelly complimented The View co-host, telling her, “Every time I run into you, you look younger! You’re like Benjamin Button. It’s like crazy every time you walk in!”

Goldberg, 68, in turn, said that’s because of all the weight she’s lost, which she pegged as “almost two people,” with Clarkson noting “I’ve lost a lot as well,” which Whoopi said she’d noticed.

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In a rare public comment from an A-lister about their use of the weight loss drugs that have come into vogue over the past few years, EGOT winner Goldberg said she’s been using “the wonderful shot that works for folks who need some help.”

“Mine is a different one than people assume,” said Clarkson, 42. “I ended up having to do that too because my blood work got so bad.” While Clarkson did not specify which drug she was using, Goldberg noted that the decision to try medical weight loss intervention is good for people like them who have “issues.”

Clarkson said she wasn’t planning on discussing her weight loss with Goldberg, but once the subject came up the singer said, “I didn’t see it,” describing reviewing tape of a birthday show she did last April at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles that surprised her. “We were watching it back and I paid to have it taped and I was going to release it… and then my doctor chased me for like two years and I was like, ‘no, I’m afraid of it. I already have thyroid problems.’ I was afraid. Everybody thinks it’s Ozempic, it’s not, it’s something else.”

Ozempic is an FDA-approved injectable medication originally formulated to help adults with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar. But the drug, as well as others like it, have proven to have weight loss properties that have led to a surge in off-label prescribing due to its additional ability to trick the brain into thinking the patient is full. Clarkson said the unnamed drug she’s taking “aids in helping break down the sugar [because] obviously my body doesn’t do it right.”

Clarkson described screening the footage of the birthday show in her house in New York as she was preparing to release the performance, “and then all of a sudden I paused it and I was like, ‘who the f–k is that?!’ I swear to God! It sounds insane.” Goldberg said she had a similar experience while on the set of the historical drama Till, where she said a woman on the set thought the comedian/actress was wearing a “fat suit.” At her heaviest, Goldberg said she was around 300 pounds, with Clarkson, 5’3″, noting that at one point she weighed 203 pounds.

“I was indignant! I was like, ‘this is not a fat suit! This is me!’ And then I saw…” Goldberg said. “You see it and you’re like, ‘she’s about to die of a heart attack,'” Clarkson responded. The strangest part, Clarkson said, was that she never saw herself as being overweight, was never insecure about her body, and, despite what she said some people thought, she was happy.

Goldberg put it in relatable comedic terms, joking that Clarkson was just living her life, then adding, “If you’re not rolling over on somebody…” which led to Kelly getting real about how unconcerned she was. “I’m gonna be real with you, I was ridin’ high with someone and I did not know!… I watched that show and I was like, ‘she is… any second now gonna die.'”

In an interview in February on her show with Kevin James, Clarkson said she was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, which motivated her to lose weight. At the time she said, “I wasn’t shocked. I was a tiny bit overweight. So, yeah, I wasn’t shocked by it. But they did. They were like, ‘You’re prediabetic. You’re right on the borderline.’ And I was like, ‘But I’m not there yet.’ And then I waited two years and then did, however, move into the — I was like, ‘OK, I’ll do something about it.’”

Around the same time, Clarkson said after moving to New York with her two young children she began to lose some weight by walking around the city constantly, watching her diet and using an infrared sauna. “I eat a healthy mix. I dropped weight because I’ve been listening to my doctor — a couple years I didn’t,” she said at the time. “And 90 percent of the time I’m really good at it because a protein diet is good for me anyway. I’m a Texas girl, so I like meat — sorry, vegetarians in the world!”

Watch Goldberg on the Kelly Clarkson Show below.

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