Oprah Winfrey has admitted she has been using weight-loss medication, despite denying she would ever take Ozempic to shed pounds.
The US talk show icon has been under pressure from rumours claiming she was using medical weight loss aids.
Winfrey said she is now "done with the shaming" having lost around 18kg over a few months.
She has previously said she would never use medication as she saw it as an "easy way out" during a discussion with WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani.
In 2018, she lost 19kg with help from Weight Watchers.
However, in a People magazine article published this week, she said: "I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing" but stopped short of revealing what the drug was that she had taken.
"The fact that there's a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.
"I'm absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself," she said, before revealing she had taken the medication before Thanksgiving as she knew would have "two solid weeks of eating".
She also credited the drug for causing her to only gain 0.22kg because it "quiets the food noise".
In October, a new study found people taking popular injected medications for weight loss, including Wegovy, Ozempic, Saxenda and Victoza, may be at higher risk for serious digestive problems such as stomach paralysis, pancreatitis, and bowel obstructions, compared with those taking other types of weight loss medications.
The study, which was published as a research letter in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), found risks of these events happening to individual patients appear to be rare.
