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At least she admitted it. Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger appeared on a podcast recently and copped to trying Ozempic and Mounjaro — drugs intended for people with diabetes or chronic obesity — for weight loss. Patti talked about the side effects she felt from Ozempic — nausea and heartburn — which was why she switched to Mounjaro like all her friends. It’s all about wanting to be a “skinny mini” and align with that Hollywood ideal.
Millionaire Matchmaker’s Patti Stanger says she has taken drugs intended for people with type 2 diabetes or chronic obesity.
“I’m on the shot,” she told host David Yontef on his Behind the Velvet Rope podcast. “I’m gonna tell you the truth. I went on semaglutide, which is the ingredient in Ozempic.”
Semaglutide is a drug that is branded as Ozempic for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy for the treatment of chronic obesity. The FDA has listed a shortage for both brands.
Stanger, speaking about the prevalence of “skinny minis” in Hollywood and the pressure to conform to that ideal, explained her experience with the drug, which has a variety of reported side effects including nausea and heartburn.
“I got the worst acid reflux,” she related. “And I was not feeling good. So, I stopped three weeks in.”
Due to the side effects, Stanger switched to another diabetes drug, Mounjaro, or Tirzepatide.
“I waited, and all my hairdresser friends went on Mounjaro,” she said. “I’m not diabetic, but I do take a sugar pill twice a day to keep my sugar down,” Stanger noted. “So my doctor recommended it, and she said, ‘I’ll give you the vial of Tirzepatide,’ which is the ingredient.”
She added, “I am not nauseous like everybody else.”
At least Patti’s honest about doing it and why she did it, but still, just wow. There are people that actually need these drugs for conditions like diabetes and they’re not able to get them due to this off-label, vanity use. And like, if you’re having side effects on one unnecessary drug, it’s kind of insane to switch to another unnecessary drug instead of just… stopping with the unnecessary drugs entirely. I don’t know, all drugs have side effects, but there’s medical necessity and a personal cost/benefit analysis to be made there. And subjecting yourself to unpleasant side effects to go from being a perfectly healthy weight to being underweight is just… I don’t even know what to say at this point! But if you’re not diabetic and you’re taking a diabetes drug and then having to take a sugar pill as if you are diabetic, maybe reevaluate your choices.
Why zero consequences for the medical professionals prescribing this to thing women who need to be more thin?
As Courtney Love used to call them- the Elvis doctors who hand out pills like candy.
More of them should lose licenses and do jail time.
All these women got this from their DOCTORS
Judy Garland doctors? Gawd her body transformation from curvy to emaciated before ODing but we learn nothing.
This! It’s not the patient’s job to decide whether or not a patient should have access to certain drugs. That’s up to their doctor.
The doctors have made the decision – presumably, despite being fully aware that actual diabetics/pre-diabetics need these drugs – to hand them out to wealthy women looking to drop 10 vanity pounds. The doctors involved should be held accountable for that.
YES. The prescribers should be getting publicly disciplined and fined for this. And for each offense, suspend their licenses and shut their offices down for 30 days minimum to make it hurt. Where are the California (and other) medical and nursing boards in all of this?
What is a sugar pill? How does it keep your sugar down?
She is likely talking about metformin, so she’s prediabetic.
Her weight has fluctuated a lot over the years and she doesn’t exercise. She was very heavy for the first few seasons of Millionaire Matchmaker, so I’m not surprised she’s pre diabetic. In that case, she’s not exactly using these drugs off label.
Yeah, I’m not sure why she’s calling it a sugar pill, she probably doesn’t want to say metformin. But if you are on metformin, you are either diabetic or pre-diabetic.
She could have PCOS. Metformin and Ozempic are used off-label to treat PCOS. It’s why I’m on both and have seen nothing but amazing blood results since I started.
There was actually a serious discussion on my local public radio station yesterday about these particular drugs being used for weight loss. While these particular people may be using it for vanity, it seems that there isn’t complete resistance to using it for medically supervised weight loss either, based on the discussion. Left me with more questions than answers but at least it was being discussed. Honestly, if my doctor offered it, I’d consider it, ngl.
This was the discussion: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101892196/new-weight-loss-drugs-disrupt-long-held-beliefs-about-obesity
This makes me so fucking angry. Rather than make a concerted effort to address our society’s dangerously warped attitude toward bodies, we’re still chasing after every “cure” for non-size 2 bodies, like it’s a disease. Fuck every single one of these complicit motherfuckers who have created a world where 14-years-olds obsess over their weight more than they do grades, relationships, and every new and exciting experience they’re going through. Where body modifiers like the Kardashians command attention, and normal, healthy bodies are considered shameful. Where fierce, brilliant, wildly talented women are given more accolades for losing weight than being cultural groundbreakers (*ahem, Mindy Kaling).
Fuck this whole body disorder industrial complex and everyone who participates in it.
This times one billion. It is beyond disgusting.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I am sucked into it (slightly; I carry 15 extra and am getting pretty comfortable with that and am trying to age mindfully- not running into it but not running from it either. Anyway, my kid developed an ED during the pandemic. It was about a lot more than influencers and fads but it wasn’t not about them either. Made me aware of my own habits, but they sneak back in. This is powerful shit.
I’m having a day, but it feels like it’s just never going to end, mostly because we women keep enabling and confirming this kind of thinking. We are good enough just as we are. We have bigger things, more important things to focus on but spend way too much time, money and mental health focused on what we look like. I’m not immune to it. But man, we really do it to ourselves, and it is to the benefit of men and those shilling crap. Wish I knew the solution.
Fully, J. This issue has been feeding my rage-monster lately, and now I can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere, and I know I participate to some degree too. I think the Ozempic issue is so frustrating because the message has become that it’s ok to compromise your health and feel terrible JUST to be thin. How is this any different than bulimia or anorexia — oh yeah, it’s worse. Because you’re affecting people who actually NEED that medicine to be healthy.
i have type 2 diabetes. i have a prescription for mounjaro that will get harder and harder to get because of shit like this. my insurance company was being a pita (the retail price of this stuff is like $1200/mo and if people are getting it off-label, that’s what they’re paying) and now i’ve got competition for the limited supply of the drug from women who have 25 lbs they want to lose and the $ to pay full price.
ngl, i am loving it. i am fat. i am also in my 50s and have crappy knees. i’ve lost about 40 lbs since last fall. but i have no appetite half the month and i do need to eat. however, doctors need to stop prescribing it off label until manufacturing capacity can catch up to demand for the patients for which it’s intended.
I’m on Ozempic for my diabetes. Yes I have lost weight. More importantly my A1C is down. I went on it in September and I had to wait to start it because of the shortage. I’m pretty outraged that there is a chance I may have to ration a prescribed medication because people want to be size 0s, not because it’s prescribed. I was already blessed that I didn’t need to ration my insulin because of the cost, and thanks to Ozempic and further life style changes I haven’t needed insulin, so yay, one outrage at a time.
I’m happy for you, Heather! Science, technology, and medicine can be a truly amazing thing — just look at how far we’ve come since the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the 80s! It’s cultures like this, though, and that warp it to the point it becomes damaging.
Just like women, men are also under a lot of pressure to be lean AND muscular. Women don’t need to be muscular like a men so it is a little easier for them. Right now I am 20 pounds overweight and I hate it. My clothes don’t fit right and I am prediabetic but I would never consider taking Ozempic or Mounjaro because it is a short term solution to a lifelong problem. My overeating is doing me in and that’s what I need to change. Crash and fad diets don’t work, drugs don’t work in the long run. Eating less works and exercising a little helps too.
What happened to the days when people exercised and ate healthier to loss weight? Nowadays people want instant results but that is not how to weight loss works. It takes time to lose weight in a healthy way and its better long term. I am surprised people who can afford a dietician, personal trainer and other amities to lose weight would take the medicine route. Its unsafe but because celebrities who have platform openly talk about it the general public is inspired and starts these fads. I feel bad for the people who need these medicine the prices have gone up. However I will not feel any sympathy for anyone who takes this medicine and does not need it because they are purposely ruining their own health for vanity.