When it comes to weight loss medication, Melissa Gorga is seemingly an outlier on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
“I think I’m the only one on the cast that does not take Ozempic,” Gorga, 45, claimed during the Wednesday, May 29, episode of Sherri.
Host Sherri Shepherd asked Gorga if she was taking the weight loss drug, since Gorga’s RHONJ castmates Dolores Catania and Margaret Josephs previously stated on the show that “most of the cast is taking Ozempic and very, very honest about it.”
“You don’t take Ozempic?” Shepherd, 57, asked a second time.
“I work out really, really hard … to each their own for everything, but no, I don’t take it,” Gorga responded.
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Ozempic and its weight loss competitors continue to be a source of fascination and controversy as more celebrities confess to using the drug or issue public denials. As far as the RHONJ franchise, Catania, 53, exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month that she was down to her “high-school weight” of 130 pounds since she began taking the semaglutide Mounjaro in April 2023. She also uses Ozempic, another medication primarily prescribed to diabetic patients.
“I wasn’t going to come to the [season 13] reunion looking any bigger than anyone else, so I got on the bandwagon,” Catania said during a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “[I’m] just not hungry.”
On an episode of Sherri earlier this month, Catania said she didn’t know why people are reluctant to admit that they take Ozempic “because there’s no shame in it.”
She said that she chose to be “honest” about how she shed pounds “because it’s [the] right” thing to do.
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Josephs, 57, who joined her on the show, said that it was hard for her to lose weight after going through menopause. “And then you’re shamed for it if you’re heavy,” she said, adding of the medication, “It shuts off that food noise, my blood work is great. … [Before Ozempic], I couldn’t do anything. It doesn’t matter if I was eating right, exercising, so I don’t know why there’s any shame in it if it’s helpful to people.”
Recently, The Real Housewives of Dubai star Caroline Stanbury, 48, defended her use of Ozempic.
“After 40, we all know, it’s very, very hard to lose weight,” Stanbury, 48, said during a March episode of the “Uncut & Uncensored” podcast. “I met so many 40-year-old women going, ‘How have you done it?’ And I don’t want to lie to you. I told you, I used Ozempic, which I think is one of the best tools if you’re able to use it.”
