Hollywood’s awards season is in full swing, and one thing is becoming clear: the theme of 2025 is distinctly Hitchcockian: ‘the lady vanishes’.
Ariana Grande, Demi Moore, Brooke Shields, Selena Gomez – even the defiantly curvaceous Nicola Coughlan of Bridgerton and Derry Girls fame – all seem to be shrinking dramatically.
Cynthia Erivo, Grande’s co-star in the hugely successful Wicked, has developed a worrying case of ‘xylophone chest’, where she’s lost so much fat you can see her upper ribcage.
Grande has a similar problem, exacerbated by her already birdlike frame and accentuated by her tendency to wear dresses slashed to the waist. Meanwhile, Moore’s arms look like twigs, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the only thing holding her face together are her fillers.
Thinness has always been seen as a virtue in showbiz circles. Traditionally the only women (or men) who can get away with being even normal-sized (let alone fat) are the funny ones, and even that’s not really the case anymore (see Rebel Wilson and James Corden). Not, that is, since Hollywood discovered Ozempic.
Most of them won’t admit it, of course. Grande’s ‘people’, for example, are at great pains to point out that her dramatic weight-loss is down to her ‘punishing’ schedule. Gomez maintains that it’s her lupus treatment, as well as a gut condition called Sebo (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, also responsible, the star has said in the past, for weight gain). Moore’s excuse is more old-school: a raw vegan diet, yoga and a ‘shift in mindset’.
Mmm. Maybe. Either way, I’ve only got one thing to say to these A-listers: if you’re taking it, hands off my Ozempic, ladies, you’re giving it a bad name.
If you happen to be a human labrador like me, semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic, as well as Wegovy) is a godsend. Having struggled all my life to keep my weight in check, as many people do, I finally found something that really works.
Ariana Grande’s representatives have said her dramatic weight-loss is down to her ‘punishing’ schedule
Cynthia Erivo also starred in the hugely successful Wicked film adaptation
Nicola Coughlan of Bridgerton and Derry Girls fame also appears to have lost weight
I don’t take it because I want to be sylph-like (that would never be possible anyway given my ‘East German shot-putter’ frame, as my father always used to put it). In fact, when I had supper with Dame Joan Collins the other day and told her I had been using it she looked me up and down in that brilliant Dame Joan way and said, ‘Darling, it doesn’t seem to be working terribly well, does it?’
No, I take it because it helps me keep my weight stable and out of the BMI naughty corner, aka the dreaded ‘red zone’ that I always used to find myself on visits to the doctor. Now, when they ask me to take my shoes off and stand on the scales, I no longer feel a flush of panic as I anticipate the inevitable lecture. More importantly, I am no longer pre-diabetic (the reason my doctor prescribed it in the first place), I have more energy, and I find it easier to exercise on a regular basis for the simple reason that I am not hauling around an extra couple of stones.
To my mind, this is the correct use of Ozempic: to help those who for whatever reasons – age, genetics or other chronic health conditions – have trouble maintaining a healthy weight and are at risk of other weight-related diseases. And if it’s true – as several studies appear to indicate – that it can help with a range of other ailments such as depression, drinking, heart disease and even Alzheimer’s, then of course it should be considered as a course of treatment.
What it shouldn’t be is a tool for getting into that size zero pair of jeans, or to make those who are a normal weight dangerously thin. And this is obviously what is going on: whether they care to admit it or not, Hollywood’s A-listers are using weight-loss jabs to tip the scales from slim to super-slim – and they’re not the only ones.
Ozempic is rife in the fashion world, as even the most cursory glance at the latest catwalks will attest; and social x-rays everywhere are using it to out-do each other in the size zero stakes.
Yummy mummies are fighting over stocks in their local chemist; shockingly, even girls my daughter’s age are on it.
While this may have certain advantages (it certainly saves on canapes if you’re hosting a party), the overall effect is pernicious: it’s kick-starting a return to the bad old days of body-negativity and fat-shaming – and reinforcing the already intolerable pressure on young girls and women to be unrealistically slim. Only now, thanks to Ozempic, there’s no excuse not to be.
Ozempic was never designed as a tool to assist anorexia. And yet, looking at the latest pictures of Grande and her cohorts, I fear that may be exactly where it’s heading.
