Whoopi Goldberg has joined a growing list of stars openly discussing personal use of weight loss medication.
The US actress said she used medication after starring as grandmother Alma Carthan in a film titled Till, based on the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley’s pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett, who was lynched in 1955.
“I weighed almost 300 pounds when I made Till,” Goldberg said on chat show The View, which airs on US network ABC.
“I had taken all those steroids, I was on all this stuff and one of the things that’s helped me drop the weight was the Mounjaro. That’s what I use,” referencing weight loss medication.
Goldberg previously corrected a critic who said she was wearing a fat suit in the film, instead confirming she had to take steroids for sciatica.
“When I realised how much (weight) I had put on – I just always felt like me and then I saw me and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a lot of me’,” Goldberg said.
Her comments come after Oprah Winfrey addressed past criticism of her weight on a TV special titled An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame And The Weight Loss Revolution on ABC.
“I have to say that I took on the shame that the world gave to me, for 25 years making fun of my weight was national sport,” Winfrey said.
The TV presenter urged people to “stop the shaming and blaming” in conversations around weight.
Meanwhile Goldberg said: “My weight has come and gone but it has never been an issue for me, because I don’t listen to what other people say about me, so it has never been a problem.”
She added: “I think it is a matter of how we treat ourselves.”