Oprah Winfrey Reflects on Painful Memories, Recalls Feeling ‘Too Fat to Attend’ Don Johnson’s Christmas Party

Oprah Winfrey takes a walk down memory lane, reminiscing about how it was almost a “national sport” to make fun of her weight. She recalls a certain “comedy bit” that deeply hurt her.

Credit: Jamie Kern Lima/YouTube

During an appearance on the first episode of The Jamie Kern Lima podcast, Oprah Winfrey opened up about her longstanding struggles with her weight, noting that these issues sometimes held her back or resulted in “hurtful” media moments.

Oprah shared that she began gaining weight almost immediately after the famous episode in November 1988 where she wheeled out a wagon full of fat on The Oprah Winfrey Show to demonstrate her weight loss.

“I didn’t eat a bite of food for five solid months to lose that weight on [the all-liquid diet] Optifast,” Oprah revealed to Lima, who is also known for her bestselling book Worthy and as the founder of IT Cosmetics.

“Just three days later, I gained back 5 lbs., and a week later I had gained 10 lbs.,” Oprah, who recently celebrated her 70th birthday, recounted.

“Right before Christmas, I remember that Don Johnson, the star of Miami Vice, was hosting a party and invited me and some of my show’s team to attend. I didn’t go because I felt I was too fat,” Oprah said.

“I had gone from weighing 145 lbs. on the day of the show to around 157 lbs. in just a week and a half or two, and the shame crept back in,” she admitted.

Credit: Oprah.com

She also looked back on the years when “making fun of my weight was a national sport for 25 years,” mentioning that one of the most hurtful moments came from Keenan Ivory Wayans’ sketch comedy show, In Living Color.

“In Living Color did a skit where a woman just kept eating and getting fatter and fatter until she eventually exploded,” Oprah remembered, referencing the skit where Kim Wayans impersonated her.

“The whole audience burst out laughing, and the woman being mocked was me,” she said.

Credit: YouTube

“That kind of mockery was just accepted at the time— it was a thing people did,” Oprah stated. “But as I turned 70, I’ve decided not to carry this weight and shame into the next decade of my life. I’m done with it,” she expressed.

She later added, “I was often judgmental because I had been judged so harshly. Honestly, I don’t think anyone has been more publicly judged about their weight than me. I’ve carried the weight and shame of other people’s judgments for years.”