Whoopi Goldberg Reveals She Used Weight Loss Medication After Filming ‘Till’

Whoopi Goldberg revealed Tuesday she used weight loss drug Mounjaro after weighing around 300 pounds when filming Till, which she starred in and produced. Goldberg joins a growing list of celebrities to speak openly about obesity drugs amid Oprah Winfrey’s ABC special which aired Monday.

Upon the film’s release in 2022, Goldberg took a moment to respond to a reporter’s claim she wore a fat suit to play the role. “I don’t really care how you felt about the movie,” she said at the time, “but you should know that was not a fat suit, that was me. That was steroids.”

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While filming the movie, in which she portrayed Emmett Till’s grandmother Alma Carthan, Goldberg suffered a near-fatal health scare that involved double pneumonia and sepsis.

“I had taken all those steroids, I was on all this stuff,” Goldberg said on The View this week, recounting the incident. “And one of the things that’s helped me drop the weight was the Mounjaro. That’s what I used.”

Goldberg went on to say she hadn’t realized how much weight she gained until one day seeing herself in the mirror. “I just always felt like me,” she said. “And then I saw me and I thought, ‘Oh! That’s a lot of me!’”

During a discussion with the rest of her co-hosts, Goldberg advocated for the health benefits of understanding obesity as a medical condition that deserves to be treated. “It’s a matter of how we treat ourselves,” she said.

Her comments were inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s Monday night special, Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution, which featured Winfrey in discussion with medical experts, patients and members of the pharmaceutical and weight loss industries to discuss the growing popularity of weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy. Winfrey revealed she was first been introduced to the medications in 2021 and recently stepped down from the board of Weight Watchers after being the face of the brand for nearly 10 years.

“I have to say that I took on the shame that the world gave to me,” Oprah told the audience Monday. “For more than 25 years, making fun of my weight was national sport. I was ridiculed on every late night talk show for 25 years and on tabloid covers for 25 years.”

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