Oprah Winfrey praises Hugh Jackman and social media ban – but avoids key weight-loss detail

3 months ago 6

Australia’s social media ban for under-16s is world leading and will change children’s lives for the better, US superstar Oprah Winfrey declared during her first event on her tour Down Under on Thursday night.

“I think you’re going to change the lives of an entire generation of kids who are going to have better lives,” Winfrey told moderator Melissa Doyle to rapturous applause at TikTok Entertainment Centre in Sydney’s Darling Harbour.

Oprah Winfrey, pictured here in Sydney on Thursday, has returned to Australia for the first time in a decade for a speaking tour in partnership with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

“There are all of these young people who cannot actually communicate or have a conversation, particularly young boys because they become addicted to porn so early and don’t know how to actually ask somebody out on a date, haven’t experienced the socialisation of talking to a real person. So once again, Australia leads the way for the rest of the world.”

She was also quick to praise her friend Hugh Jackman, not just because he recommended Bill Granger’s ricotta pancakes to her – so good she went back twice – but because of his performance in the upcoming biographical musical drama, Song Sung Blue, in which he and Kate Hudson play a couple who form a Neil Diamond tribute band.

“I am in love with this movie … [Jackman] deserves all the awards, all the accolades,” Winfrey told the packed 8000-seat auditorium. “He is vibrating at his highest level in this movie and so I hope you go see it ... I have nothing to do with the movie except I’ve now seen it three times myself.”

In addition to Jackman and the social media ban, Winfrey spoke extensively about acting with intention and integrity, being kind, and making people feel seen.

She touched briefly on the discrimination she faced as a black woman coming up in television in the 1970s, and how, when “life closes a door, it opens a window for you”. She even admitted she is not a fan of best friend Gayle King’s red hair.

But she was less forthright when it came to Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company behind GLP-1 receptor agonist medication Mounjaro (tirzepatide).

The 71-year-old former talk show host is on her first trip to Australia in 10 years in partnership with Lilly, which is next sending her to Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne to inspire audiences by speaking about “the power of authenticity” and “necessity of resilience”, according to Oprah In Conversation: Presented by Lilly’s blurb.

On Monday, Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), issued a safety warning over the risk of suicidal thoughts and reduced effectiveness of oral contraception linked with GLP-1 receptor agonists, including Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy and more.

No such drug was mentioned by Winfrey on stage on Thursday. The closest thing to an outright acknowledgement of GLP-1 receptor agonist medications, which Winfrey confirmed in 2023 she uses, was from a clip of a previous television appearance.

“I never dreamed that we would be talking about medicines that are providing hope for people like me who have struggled for years with being overweight or with obesity,” Winfrey said in the pre-recorded video, aired in a package that was played before she got on stage.

It wasn’t until 52 minutes into her mammoth one-hour-and-40-minute-long sit-down that Winfrey mentioned her weight loss journey, alluding to her use of GLP-1 receptor agonists with the umbrella term “treatment”.

After making a promise to God as she recovered from double knee surgery in 2021, Winfrey hikes daily, she says, including at Wattamolla in the Royal National Park while she’s in Sydney, and Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains.

Another game-changing element in her weight loss journey, Winfrey said, was discovering obesity is a disease, a storyline mirrored in the myriad copies of the free Let’s Talk magazine Lilly laid out in the auditorium’s lobby for attendees to take.

Winfrey was generous with her time on Thursday night, speaking for so long that moderator Melissa Doyle was unable to ask her questions that had been submitted by the audience due to time running out.

“All the shame and blame I brought to myself all these years was unfounded because obesity is a disease,” Winfrey said on stage.

“When I discovered that it’s a disease, I called my doctor and I started treatment. That is not one answer. It’s a combination of all the things that I’m doing. So I’m working out. I’m planking, I’m doing resistance training, I’m hiking and also eating a lot less. And through the treatment all of my food noise stopped.”

That GLP-1 receptor agonists were not overtly mentioned by Winfrey or in the Let’s Talk advertising magazine is a reflection of Australian rules forbidding the advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public. The TGA’s policy is to prevent self-diagnosis based on incomplete or misleading information, and to ensure treatment decisions are made with a healthcare professional.

Lilly advertised the event as a “rare opportunity” to hear reflections from Winfrey that will “resonate with anyone seeking purpose, inspiration, or a spark to reimagine their own path”, and they delivered. But by her failure to address the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists directly on Thursday night, attendees may have left confused as well as inspired.