WW’s cra$h diet as Oprah leaves
WeightWatchers shares plummeted 18% Thursday after slimmed-down media mogul Oprah Winfrey announced she is leaving the diet company’s board to “eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight loss medications.”
Winfrey, who had admitted to using a weight-loss drug as a “maintenance tool” a few months ago, said she would donate her 1.4% stake in the company — reportedly worth about $12 million — to the National Museum of African American History and Culture during the company’s open trading window next month.
WeightWatchers said in a press release Wednesday that Winfrey won’t be standing for reelection at the May shareholder meeting.
The move ends the 70year-old former talk-show queen’s 9-year tenure on the board.
On Thursday, shares of the company, also known as WW International, closed at $3.12, down 70 cents.
Winfrey’s name and image have been plastered all over WeightWatcher’s marketing and advertising efforts since she joined the weight-loss company — which uses a points system rather than calories or other nutritional metrics to track what a user eats throughout the day.
She has famously battled weight issues over her long career, and had touted that she shed as much as 42 pounds on the program — sharing her experience getting her blood sugar and blood pressure back into healthy ranges while using WeightWatchers’ points system.
However, Winfrey recently admitted to turning to popular weight-loss drugs as a “maintenance tool.”
After shocking fans in a form-fitting dress for the December premiere of “The Color Purple” — where onlookers reveled that she looked “thinner than ever” — Winfrey revealed to People that she’s been taking a prescription weight-loss drug “as a tool to manage not yo-yo-ing.”
She declined, however, to confirm whether she was taking popular options like Ozempic or Wegovy.
Months prior, Winfrey said that those who use Ozempic to lose weight were taking an “easy way out.”
She swiftly walked back on the comments after it was revealed that the telehealth subscription service, Sequence, that WeightWatchers paid $106 million to acquire, prescribes Ozempic and other drugs used for weight loss.