Kathy Bates is defending her weight loss journey after admitting she used Ozempic as a secondary tool to shed 100 pounds.
“People say, ’Well, it was the Ozempic.’ F*** you, it was the Ozempic!” Bates, 77, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday, September 10. “It took me years to do this. I got this diagnosis about diabetes — my father died of it; his mother died of it; one of my sisters is in peril. When they said ’diabetes,’ I figured out what to do to slowly, over years, to lose the weight. And then when Ozempic came along, I was able to lose the last 15 to 20 pounds and keep it off.”
Bates added of her hit CBS series Matlock, “The juxtaposition of getting healthy and then this show coming along is just unbelievable. The timing of it is great.”
Bates previously addressed Ozempic rumors in an October 2024 interview with People, revealing that she started using the type 2 diabetes medication after she had already lost 80 pounds.
“There’s been a lot of talk that I just was able to do this because of Ozempic,” Bates told the outlet. “But I have to impress upon people out there that this was hard work for me, especially during the pandemic. It’s very hard to say you’ve had enough.”
Bates’ decision to get serious about her health came after she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2017.
“I ate because I was afraid, and I ate because it was a FU to my self-esteem,” she continued. “[Diabetes] runs in my family, and I’d seen what my father had gone through. He had had a leg amputation. One of my sisters is dealing with it very seriously, and it terrified me. It scared me straight.”
In January 2019, Bates celebrated losing 60 pounds and exclusively told Us Weekly about her approach to mindful eating.
Kathy Bates Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images
“Mindfulness, just knowing when to push my plate away,” she said at the time. “My niece told me this little secret, I guess it’s no secret, it’s a biological thing, that at some point when you’re eating, you have this involuntary sigh and that’s really your brain and your stomach communicating that you’ve had enough. The trick is to pay attention to that and push your plate away.”
Bates also said she cut out soda and junk food.
“It took a few years,” she admitted. “I would say you have to be really patient … I don’t like the word willpower, but I like the word determination.”
In September 2024, Bates gushed about having more confidence and energy after her weight loss.
“It’s helped me tremendously that, over the last six or seven years, I’ve lost 100 pounds,” she told Variety. “I don’t think I’ve been this slim since I was in college.”
Bates recalled filming her show Harry’s Law from 2011 to 2012, when she was at her heaviest weight.
“I had to sit down every moment that I could. It was hard for me to walk,” she reflected. “I’m ashamed I let myself get so out of shape, but now I have a tremendous amount of energy.”
