When Ozempic first received FDA approval for management of type 2 diabetes in 2017, few could have predicted the level of notoriety it’d achieve, seemingly out of nowhere, in 2023. Ozempic, a brand name for semaglutide, has become a household name—not for its ability to improve glycemic control in adults with diabetes but for its weight-loss benefits.
The weekly injections suppress cravings and improve satiety while also slowing the rate at which food is digested, ultimately leading to weight loss of 5–20%. They’re a seemingly magic solution for those looking to slim down fast, so it’s no surprise that Ozempic has become Hollywood’s—and the Real Housewives’—worst-kept secret.
But not all the Bravo women are fans; many have been outspoken critics and condemned their castmates for using it this way. Here, what 16 Real Housewives have said about the Ozempic obsession.
Heather Gay
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member made headlines earlier this year for her role in one of the most memorable Housewives finales of all time. (Receipts. Proof. Timeline. Screenshots.) Now, she’s in the news for her recent Ozempic admission. The Bad Mormon author told ABC News that she’s lost nearly 30 pounds since starting the drug a few months ago—and finally feels seen. “Even after being on television, writing a New York Times bestselling book, for the first time, I was being valued — by my castmates, by the public — in a way that I had never been valued before. And that felt, to me, sad,” she said, adding that the response to her weight loss made her realize that body positivity was, “all a big lie.” Gay also admitted that she absolutely felt pressure to take the drug: “I didn’t wanna show up at another party and see all of my friends 20 pounds thinner and just be resentful.”
Heather Dubrow
While her husband, Dr. Terry Dubrow, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Newport Beach, California, recently warned of the dangers of Ozempic, the RHOC star took somewhat a different stance. “I’m over this whole ozempic-shaming thing, and I’m also over people asking, ‘Are you on Ozempic?’” she told US Weekly. “Would you ask someone, ‘Are you on a beta-blocker? Cholesterol? What are your statins? What’s that looking like?’ It’s private medical information. I don’t think it’s anyone’s business.” She also likened the public’s collective “shock and awe” surrounding the drug to the attitudes towards Botox when it first hit the market, and says she expects the feeling toward Ozempic and other similar weight loss drugs to evolve in the same way. “Now, you know, you can’t spit in New York City and not hit a Botox center on a street corner. I mean, it’s everywhere. I feel like these miracle weight loss drugs are gonna end up being the same thing.”
Erika Jayne
Jayne sported a drastically slimmed-down appearance on a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live, so much so that host Andy Cohen told her she looked like “a whisper of herself.” The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star addressed her new look directly, though did preface the conversation by saying she was aware that it was a sensitive topic. “Let me just start off by saying, you know, I want to make sure that I don’t trigger anybody because we have this conversation in Beverly Hills and we have a cast member with an eating disorder,” she said (this in reference to Crystal Kung Minkoff). “I did come down in weight. I did it hormonally.” When Cohen then joked, “Not Ozempic-ally?” 52-year-old Jayne credited menopause. However, she went on to say, “I went to the doctor and I said get it off”—though never elaborated as to what exactly that meant.
Dolores Catania
On a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live, host Andy Cohen called out the Real Housewives of New Jersey star’s thinner appearance, asking her directly if she was on Ozempic. When she answered yes, Cohen then jokingly asked her which Housewife wasn’t on the drug. “Not one! I wasn’t going to come to [the] reunion looking bigger than anyone else, so I got on the bandwagon,” she replied. Catania went on to say that she’s had no side effects and she simply isn’t hungry.
And, in an upcoming episode of Page Six’s podcast, she expanded on her decision to take Ozempic, saying, “I’m going through menopause, I have a thyroid issue, I have inflammation and weight is hard to take off … I work out, and I don’t eat crazy, and I was gaining weight, and it’s a lot of different layers … Let’s just let everybody know.”
Marysol Patton
The Real Housewives of Miami’s Marysol Patton appeared on the same Watch What Happens Live episode as Catania, and when Cohen asked which Housewives weren’t on the drug, Patton raised her hand, indicating that she wasn’t.
Kyle Richards
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star ignited the rumor mills earlier this year when she posted a number of photos where she appeared noticeably thinner, including bikini pics of her taut and toned abs. Even RHONJ star Melissa Gorga speculated that Ozempic was the reason for Richards’ new look: “I’m not gonna lie, when I first saw her, I was like, ‘Ooh, she’s taking that stuff,’” Gorga said on Jeff Lewis’s SiriusXM show. Richards quickly clapped back, both on social media and on the Two Ts in a Pod podcast (hosted by ex-Housewives Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge). “To clarify, I’ve never taken Ozempic, never tried Ozempic, and I’m not taking the other one that starts with an M [she was referring to Mounjaro, another diabetes drug that works similarly]. None of that. Zero, zilch, none.” She also denied having a tummy tuck, attributing the weight loss to cutting out sugar, alcohol, and carbs and working out every single day. “I work my ass off, and I really resent when people think I’m just paying to get it done.”
Margaret Josephs
Josephs hasn’t copped to Ozempic use, but she has attributed her 22-pound weight loss to peptide and hormone replacement therapy, calling the effects life-changing. “My skin’s gotten tighter. My bones stronger. I’m sleeping better, I have more energy. Not to get into the dirty details, but I’m very good sexually, thanks to the hormones. And I’m back to a weight that feels natural for me. So it’s all been very positive for me. I feel great—more than anything, I feel great,” she told People. Her treatment includes glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1; semaglutide belongs to a class of drugs that are GLP-1 receptor agonists, so there is some overlap.
Jennifer Fessler
The RHONJ newcomer underwent a deep plane facelift and rhinoplasty after filming on her first season wrapped (and she shared all the details with RealSelf). But Ozempic was also a part of her makeover. On an episode of Watch What Happens Live, she told Andy Cohen: “I did lose a lot of weight. I took peptides, and I don’t know if you’ve heard of medications associated with that that help people lose weight.” When Cohen pushed back and asked if it was Ozempic, Fessler coyly replied, “You said it, I didn’t.”
Jackie Goldschneider
Goldschneider’s 18-year battle with anorexia was a featured storyline on RHONJ, so it’s understandable that she has strong feelings about a weight-loss drug. After calling it “an eating disorder in a needle” in the comments on an Instagram post, she continued to slam nondiabetic Ozempic use on the Virtual Reali-Tea podcast. “I can talk about Ozempic all day. It gets me so fired up. I’m horrified by it. I’m not so much horrified by people wanting to lose weight—that has always been a universal thing—but I’m very, very scared of what will happen if and when people have to go off this drug. It’s just going to be a massive number of people who gain a huge amount of weight and suddenly don’t know what to do with themselves. I’m just afraid of that day. There’s going to be a lot of people with eating disorders. You start dropping massive amounts of weight. That’s so addicting. That’s how I spiraled into anorexia. You get addicted to this new body and to the attention that comes with it,” she said.
Tamra Judge
“I think that what’s happening is, a lot of people in the world are on Ozempic right now—so if people lose weight, they think, ‘Oh they’re on the shot.’ I got accused of it, and I’m like, ‘I’ve been the same weight for 20, 30 years,’” she said on the Two Ts in a Pod podcast episode with Richards. She also wrote a response to Goldschneider’s “eating disorder in a needle” comment on Instagram: “That’s what I said! I can’t believe anyone would put this in their body for anything other then [sic] diabetes. It’s not a forever thing and when these girls stop they will go into depression or severe eating disorder!”
Shannon Beador
No stranger to weight fluctuations, Beador, of The Real Housewives of Orange County, has once again seriously slimmed down in the wake of her breakup with her longtime boyfriend. In a February 15 Instagram post, Beador showed off her flat stomach, eliciting plenty of comments. “Ozempic for sure,” read one, to which Beador simply replied, “Nope…”
Alexia Nepola
The RHOM O.G. and fellow castmate Marysol Patton were seen getting fat-burning shots during an episode in season five. When it aired, Nepola immediately came out and denied getting Ozempic shots, telling Page Six that they were B12 injections. “It’s for energy, and it has, like, other nutrients,” she said.
Bethenny Frankel
In true Frankel fashion, the RHONY alum shared her Ozempic-use critique via an Instagram video captioned “NOzempic.” “This is going to be scary, because very thin people who have eating disorders and body dysmorphia are going to be taking this … Mark my words, we’re not going to hear about the shitshow of this for months and years to come … This Ozempic thing is going to f****** go sideways,” she says in her video. Her caption further underscored her sentiments: “Nobody gets out without paying the bill. How do people know the long-term ramifications? Medicines used for alternative functions seems [sic] a little bit scary with the long term unknown.”
Crystal Kung Minkoff
RHOBH’s Kung Minkoff has spoken openly about her long and ongoing history with an eating disorder, both on and off the show. She also recently told Page Six that she has considered taking Ozempic. “Of course I’ve thought about it. But it’s not a good place for me, personally for my recovery,” she told the outlet. She went on to say that her recovery is going well, and that she doesn’t judge anyone for taking the drug. Rather, she’s more concerned about making sure that those using it for weight loss purposes aren’t taking it away from diabetics who need it for medical reasons. “That’s my issue with it. It’s really about making sure people who really need it first get it. Other than that, it’s really people’s decision. It can be private, it can be public, it’s on them,” she said.
Gina Kirschenheiter
Kirschenheiter appears noticeably slimmer in promo photos for the upcoming season of the Real Housewives of Orange County, but she quickly shut down rumors of Ozempic use on social media. The 39-year-old posted a TikTok video where she weighed herself and vehemently denied being on the drug. “I am 5’8” and I weigh 155.9 pounds,” she says, as she zooms in on the scale. “I am very healthy, very average. Like all of us, I try to take my pictures at good angles. I stopped drinking a year and a half ago. I am not on a weight loss drug.” (Earlier this year, she revealed that she quit drinking because she felt like she was using it as a crutch to deal with her problems.) Kirschenheiter went on to caption the video, “I’m a size 6. If I wasn’t eating, I’d be a size 2. Go kick rocks.”
Emily Simpson
Kirschenheiter’s friend and castmate recently copped to taking Ozempic, calling it a “kickstart” that helped her lose even more weight naturally after the fact. During an appearance on Jeff Lewis’ SiriusXM show, Simpson shared that by the time filming on the most recent season of RHOC wrapped in November, she had gained weight and didn’t like the way she looked. She was diagnosed as pre-diabetic and her doctor suggested she try Ozempic. “So I did. I did that in December for one month. It made me more conscientious of what I was eating and so that was a really great kickstart for me,” she told Lewis. She lost five to seven pounds, but said she ultimately stopped taking the drug because it made her feel lethargic. At the start of the year, she underwent a breast reduction and liposuction on her arms, which the 47-year-old also attributes to her drastically slimmed-down appearance. “I felt like it was just a huge difference in my overall look. Just to have the thinner arms and just the smaller chest. And I was so happy with the surgery. I have so much muscle underneath that when [my doctor] did the liposuction, my arms were just jacked,” she said. And while Instagram followers continue to credit Ozempic for her noticeable weight loss, Simpson maintains that now it’s purely a result of consistent workouts and a low-carb, high-protein diet.
