Oprah Winfrey's Face Transformation Since Using Ozempic Is Head-Turning

Since the beginning of the 2020s, many celebrities have suddenly and drastically lost weight, leading to rumors about their potential use of weight-loss drugs. One of them is TV and podcast host Oprah Winfrey, whose complete transformation from Weight Watchers to Ozempic has been astounding. In 2023, she explained to People that the medication has drastically improved her life. "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," she told the outlet, "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."

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Winfrey's weight loss has also drastically changed her face, as side-by-side photos from 2012 and 2025 show. Now, the television icon's features are much more prominent, as her face looks slimmer and longer. However, the diabetes drug comes with risks like the "Ozempic face" look, as Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a celebrity cosmetic dermatologist, explained to CNN in 2025. "Usually, with people from their mid-40s and above, once you start losing 10-plus pounds, you can get this kind of deflated look," he shared. In Winfrey's case, no significant loss of skin plumpness has been noticed, but the star also has access to the best doctors and dermatologists who can help prevent and treat skin sagging.

Winfrey revealed that taking the GLP-1 medication helped her stop blaming herself for her fluctuating weight. "One of the things that I realized the very first time I took a GLP-1 was that all these years I thought that thin people just had more willpower ... and then I realized the very first time I took the GLP-1 that, 'Oh, they're not even thinking about it,'" she said on "The Oprah Podcast" in early 2025.

As someone who has been in the spotlight since the '80s, Oprah Winfrey's physical appearance has been dissected for decades. In 2023, she revealed that going through such public scrutiny took a toll on her. "I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself," the broadcast star told People in 2023.

When weight-loss injections became more available, the thought of using them initially felt like cheating to Winfrey. "I was so motivated by shame that I felt I could not take the drug," she revealed (via CBS News). "Because if I took the drug – I, who had been the poster child for I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, willpower, willpower, let's just get more willpower – if I couldn't do it, then I would be shamed, and ashamed of myself for not being able to do it myself." Still, she began openly using Ozempic, and Winfrey's transparency around using the weight-loss drug and her openness about the mental struggles she faced when considering it have helped break the stigma around the popularized medication.