Rosie O’Donnell believes the GLP-1 drug Munjaro “saved” her life after years of gaining weight while grieving the death of her mother.
“When my mother died, all of us kids gained weight,” the talk show icon told People magazine in an interview published Thursday, referring to the 1973 death of family matriarch Roseanne O’Donnell.
The “A League of Their Own” actress recalled that her father “gave his five children $100 bills and they went to Food Town to buy food.”
“Right now, if you’re 11 years old and you’re shopping for a family of five, there’s nothing nutritious about it,” she said. “It was Entenmann’s and Cap’n Crunch. We always said, ‘Please give me the subtotal,’ and when it was close to $100, we brought back the chicken and hamburger meat.”
“Everyone got heavier,” O’Donnell recalled. “Everyone was in deep grief and trauma.”
“And Munjaro saved my life,” she declared, noting that since she started taking the drug, “I lost one to two pounds a month for three years.”
“I wish I could do a commercial for Munjaro and they would lower the price instead of paying me,” exclaimed the “View” alumnus. “Because I want to say that when I look at people who suffer from obesity, I see the shame that we carry and the humiliation that is inflicted on people who are overweight.”
The “Sleepless in Seattle” actress, 64, also reflected on the pressure she felt regarding body image.
“When I was performing late into the night, my biggest worry wasn’t about the set, it was about looking fat,” she told the outlet. “When I did my first talk show, it was Pat Sajak, and everyone was like, ‘You were so good,’ and I was like, ‘How did you feel in that blazer?'” I wasn’t even heavy then. ”
O’Donnell confessed that she now feels “a lot healthier and stronger” in her “physicality.”
But comedians aren’t the only celebrities to share their experiences with GLP-1, and some have had less positive reactions.
In June, Mayim Bialik claimed in a revealing essay that she was taking GLP-1 drugs to treat various health issues and suffered from “explosive and uncontrollable diarrhea” and “sneezing attacks” when trying to eat or drink.
The “Big Bang Theory” alum also said she experienced cramping, bloating and “pain all over my body.”
Also in June, Jenny Molen claimed on an episode of the podcast “Talk Off-Camera” with Kelly Ripa that she experienced increased bleeding while “microdosing” GLP-1 and “taking other peptides.”
The actress recalled “bleeding” and bleeding a lot, and said it could be “just a perimenopausal situation.”
Moren also said her estranged husband, Jason Biggs, passed out multiple times and was “screaming like he was in a horror movie” before he was finally taken to the hospital.
The “Angel” alum said she was on medication for hyperthyroidism and an autoimmune disease, but ultimately didn’t know why she was bleeding so much.
“I don’t know if it was necessarily because of GLP-1,” she said of the “harrowing” experience. “I think it was because my hormones were a little out of whack. If I had kept drinking, I would have been fine. But stopping and starting again is what messed me up.”
