Trigger warning: Weight loss and extreme dieting. When Mindy Kaling attended the Oscars in 2023, she immediately fell victim to what has developed into an all-too-common pattern of Ozempic-accusing. Ozempic is a treatment which is routinely used to treat type 2 diabetes but is being repurposed for weight loss because of its appetite-suppressant side effects.
The Office star, 44, looked beautiful last year at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre, wearing a white Vera Wang gown and later switching to the black version, before changing it up entirely with a floor-length metallic gown for the Vanity Fair party. But instead of lifting her up, social media was awash with damaging commentary about Ozempic.
One speculated, 'Ozempic got Mindy Kaling looking like that. What are the odds my doctor will let me try it?'
A second tweet read, 'MY GOD is Mindy Kaling on Ozempic?!?! WOOOOWWWWW! She looks like another person! She's beautiful at ANY size but I don't think I've seen her in a bit.'
'Lord just give me what Mindy Kaling has: an Ozempic prescription,' a third wrote. And more recently, someone wrote underneath one of her Instagram posts, 'Please stop the weight loss drugs! You [were] beautiful before.'
Oscars 2023 host Jimmy Kimmel even incorporated a joke about the drug into his opening monologue. 'Everybody looks so great. When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder, "Is Ozempic right for me?"' he quipped.
What has Mindy said about her weight loss?
While Mindy has never directly addressed the claims she has taken Ozempic, she discussed the public reaction to her weight loss in an interview with Allure in the summer. Asked how she felt about people who'd previously identified with her loud body acceptance and now felt like they'd 'lost an ally', she said, 'It's not super exciting for me to talk about my body and how it's analyzed. So I think I'm just not going to get into it because it takes over the conversation unfortunately and people take it so personally.'
The actress is thought to have shed 40lbs over the past few years and has been open about her weight loss. She told Entertainment Tonight in April 2022 that after welcoming her daughter Katherine in December 2017, she was due to start filming for a film two months later so opted for a ‘grilled salmon and sautéed spinach’ diet in the lead-up. However, when she welcomed her son Stanley in September 2020, the pandemic removed any work pressures, and she didn’t feel the need to diet.
She said, ‘When the world started coming back a little bit I thought, “This kind of eating what appears, not taking any consideration for what I'm eating is probably not the way to go.”
‘Honestly, I didn't really do anything differently. I eat what I like to eat. If I do any kind of restrictive diet, it never really works for me. I just eat less of it... I wish there was something more juicy or dynamic about the way that I've lost a little bit of weight, but that's the way I've done it.’
In February 2024, Mindy spoke to The Wall Street Journal about her lifestyle in a wide-ranging interview. She revealed that she gets 'excited' if she can sleep until 6am, as she will often find herself awake between 3.15 and 4.15am 'with her worries'.
And after admitting that she's not a coffee drinker, she added, 'By the time the kids are eating breakfast at like 7, 7.15, I'm very hungry. I don't eat a ton because I will go for a run or walk. So, typically, something like a corn tortilla toasted on the stovetop with a piece of avocado and a piece of turkey bacon.'
Mindy - who has also previously spoken out about 'new mum expectations' - is not the first celebrity to find herself at the heart of the Ozempic storm, with Kelly Osbourne and mum Sharon, Megan Thee Stallion and Kyle Richards all forming part of the narrative.
Per Health Express, Ozempic comes in pre-filled injection pens that you administer yourself just once a week. You can also get the drug in tablet form.
There has been much commentary about the side effects, so much so that the term 'Ozempic face' has been coined, referring to the 'facial ageing, including gauntness and skin sagging' that the drug can cause.
Jameela Jamil previously gave Grazia her take on the Ozempic trend, saying, ‘It signals the comeback of extreme thinness, at speed, and drags us back to a trend we were starting to crawl out of. With all the progress about self-worth that we’ve made... is thinness still seen as this superior? It’s about vanity and impatience – and it’s the height of diet industry corruption.’
In a nutshell, women have been placed under an unbearable amount of pressure to look a certain way for centuries. Gossiping over what they may have done to lose weight when we are none the wiser, is damaging - and sets us back. It's a toxic cycle that needs to be broken - but sadly it feels like the Ozempic discourse is not slowing down.
Millie Payne is a News and Entertainment Writer for Grazia. She has specialised in showbiz interviews, features, articles and roundups for over three years and loves combining her love for writing, talking and all things popular culture.