Chrissy Teigen has never been one to shy away from honesty, but her latest revelation on her "Self-Conscious" podcast may be her most vulnerable yet. The 39-year-old model, author, and TV personality revealed that she quietly used Ozempic, the now-famous semaglutide weight-loss injection, in the wake of unimaginable grief. For Teigen, the drug was about survival.
In September 2020, Teigen and her husband, John Legend, experienced the heartbreaking stillbirth of their son Jack. The loss left her in what she described as a “deep depression,” one made heavier by her postpartum body that no longer held the child she had longed for.
© GC ImagesOn the podcast, Teigen admitted that she began taking Ozempic after Jack’s death, describing her state of mind at the time: “I was in this deep depression of seeing this pregnant belly with no baby in it.”
For the first three to four months, she saw no results. But after nearly a year on the drug, she said her body finally started changing. “The weight just peeled off,” she recalled.
The Double-Edged Sword
The transformation was dramatic, and, in her own words, almost deceptive. Teigen described what she called “Ozempic blindness,” the inability to realize how much weight she had truly lost. “You end up losing such an incredible amount of weight you don’t realize you’ve lost too much,” she admitted.
© NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal viaBut the process wasn’t glamorous. Teigen confessed that the drug felt “frustrating” and “torturous” because she has always had a deep love of food. “Not being hungry at all, for me, I f–king hate that. I love being hungry. I love eating food. I love desiring food,” she said.
At times, the treatment was grueling. “I would take the shot. It would be three days of forcing myself to eat food. [Then] it would wear off a bit. Day four, day five, more food. Day six, the shot again.”
Reconciling With Food and Shame
Despite the side effects, Teigen admitted that Ozempic shifted her mindset around eating. “I had been on such a bad path in the way I thought about good food,” she explained. “The drug helped me ditch these insane diet rules. I felt released from that captivity.”
© Getty Images for Hearst MagazineStill, the cookbook author wrestled with guilt. She acknowledged the privilege of being able to afford a medication that many cannot and confessed to feeling dishonest with fans who bought her food books without knowing the full story. “I felt bad about it,” she said candidly, before describing how she eventually reconciled her time on the drug.
A Complicated History With Eating
Teigen also shared that her struggles with food go back decades, long before Ozempic. “As a model, I ate s–t food and threw up,” she admitted. “I didn’t consider it bulimia. I actually ate so much that I would get sick [for four years].”
Today, she’s more reflective about that past and how it shaped her. With four children — Luna, 9, Miles, 7, and toddlers Esti and Wren — Teigen is mindful of how openly she discusses food and body image.
© Getty Images for DreamWorks AnimThough she’s joked about people accusing her of looking “Ozempic much?” on Instagram last year, this is the first time Teigen has openly confirmed her use of the drug. Importantly, she did not reveal when or why she stopped.
What she did reveal, though, was a portrait of grief, survival, and the messy, imperfect relationship many people have with their bodies. For Teigen, Ozempic was never about achieving a red carpet-ready figure, but about climbing out of a depression that felt inescapable. “I reconciled it,” she said, adding that while Ozempic wasn’t a perfect solution, it helped her when she needed it most.
Her openness may not end the stigma surrounding weight-loss drugs, but it will likely spark a deeper dialogue about how mental health, body image, and access to treatment intersect.
