The media mogul teamed up with WeightWatchers for a YouTube special in which she discussed shifting away from diet culture.
Oprah Winfrey is reflecting on her weight-loss journey, including the highs and lows that have been fodder for tabloids and comedians for years, and how she believes she became a major component in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
The 70-year-old media mogul teamed up with WeightWatchers for a three-hour live YouTube special, during which she discussed shifting away from diet culture with actresses Rebel Wilson, Amber Riley, WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani and several doctors and other expert voices. As part of the Making the Shift conversation, Winfrey looked back on how the media's harsh spotlight on her weight caused her to obsess over her appearance and to go to extreme and unhealthy lengths to shed weight.
"I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture," she said during the live event broadcast. "Through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years and online, I've been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight-loss shows and makeovers I have done and they have been a staple since I've been working in television."
She continued, "I've shared how that famous wagon of fat on The Oprah Show is one of my biggest regrets. It sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet set a standard for people watching that I nor anybody else could uphold. The very next day I began to gain the weight back... That wagon of fat moment was set into motion after years and years of thinking that my struggle with my weight was my fault and it has taken me even up until last week to process the shame I felt privately as my very public yo-yo diet moments became a national joke."
Winfrey previously discussed how she's been the victim of public shaming and humiliation for decades during her primetime special, An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution.
The March special featured interviews with medical experts and people who have struggled with their weight for years in an effort to combat the stigma over the increasing use of weight-loss medications.
"In an effort to combat all the shame, I starved myself for nearly five months and then wheeled out that wagon of fat that the internet will never let me forget," Winfrey confessed during the special, recalling the infamous episode of her talk show. "And after losing 67 pounds on a liquid diet, the next day, y'all, the very next day, I started to gain it back."
One such example of Winfrey's public shaming was a 1985 appearance on The Tonight Show when the late Joan Rivers was the guest host for Johnny Carson. The former beauty pageant winner was 31 years old at the time and had just begun hosting the AM Chicago morning show.
Rivers, a comedian known for roasting people as she was for her plastic surgery, told Winfrey, "So how'd you gain the weight? You shouldn't let that happen to you. You're very pretty. I don't want to hear it. You're a pretty girl and you're single. You must lose the weight."
When Winfrey brought up Nell Carter, Rivers said that the latter was "still very chubby" after recently losing weight, and told Winfrey, "Don't you think you should lose more? People must help friends that diet. Tell a friend the truth. You must say you are still a pig, lose more weight."
"This was on national television, I was so embarrassed," Winfrey recalled during Making the Shift. "All I was thinking was, 'I can come back if I lose 15 pounds...' I left there and I gained 25 pounds. That was the start of a vicious cycle that ended in the liquid diet, where I starved myself for months and the result was that now famous wagon of fat moment."
"Last week somebody brought it up and said, 'Oh you must have been so angry,' and I'll tell you all, it had never occurred to me to be angry because I thought I deserved it," she confessed.
Leading up to the premiere of An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution, Winfrey spoke with ET at the 55th NAACP Image Awards about her hopes for how viewers would receive the special.
"I am so excited about this show that I am doing... on shame and blame and the weight loss revolution," Winfrey, who has confirmed her own use of weight-loss medication, shared. "I am so excited about it because, as you know, I've spent years in this business and been shamed myself. And I just want people to be liberated, and know that, for so many people in this country who are suffering from weight and obesity, it's really not your fault -- it's your brain."
"So once you figure that out, you can begin to get help to help you manage it, however you choose to do that," Winfrey added. "So I want people to stop being blamed for the choices that they make about their health."
"We had to break it down," Winfrey told ET about having medical experts weigh in on the conversation regarding the medications. "They've had these medications for the past 20 years. I didn't know that. They've been having this medication for 20 years and we're just now hearing about it."
Watch Winfrey's Making the Shift in partnership with WeightWatchers below.
An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution is available to stream on Hulu.