Jackie Goldschneider brought a lot of vulnerability to her storyline on Real Housewives of New Jersey. She’s been honest about her decades-long battle with anorexia. She even took cameras along on her recovery journey. Thankfully, these days Jackie says she is doing better.
But being on reality TV and in the Real Housewives circuit must be challenging. It’s all about appearances. According to Jackie, there are people in that circle that have taken extreme measures to lose weight, and she is “horrified” by it.
Jackie was asked to comment on the celebrity Ozempic fad during an appearance on Page Six’s podcast, Virtual Reali-Tea. She responded, “You should know that I can talk about Ozempic all day. It gets me so fired up. I’m horrified by it.”
Yes, Ozempic is rearing its grotesque head again. The antidiabetic medication is a semaglutide. It was marketed as a chronic weight management medicine for the severely overweight. Sold on the market as Wegovy and Ozempic, it’s now being overused by people looking for an easy way to shed a few pounds.
“There’s going to be a lot of people with eating disorders. … You start dropping massive amounts of weight. That’s so addicting. That’s how I spiraled into anorexia,” Jackie added. It’s a challenging trigger for the mother of four, who revealed to Page Six that she’s currently in a “great place.”
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve really learned to love myself and really accept myself,” Jackie said of her battle with anorexia. “I had to learn that weight has nothing to do with happiness.”
So how does the presence of Ozempic in her social circle affect the former attorney? According to Jackie, “It made my recovery harder, from a selfish standpoint, because I wanted to come back into a world where everyone around me was eating and loving food and enjoying life.”
Jackie cites the practical issues of being around dieters, especially during social events. “I wanted to come back to that and I didn’t because a lot of people in the ‘Housewives’ world are on Ozempic,” she said. “A lot of my friends are in the ‘Housewives’ world, so it was tough for me to come back and suddenly no one’s eating when we go out to dinner.”
Fans suspected Kyle Richards had been using Ozempic after she posted photos of her body looking noticeably more lean. However, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star has repeatedly denied using the drug. “To clarify, I’ve never taken Ozempic,” Kyle said recently.
Jackie isn’t naming names, or “saying anyone in particular is on it.” She “looked up to some people” thinking they “had a very normal relationship with food” only to discover they were using Ozempic. Or as Jackie previously labeled it, an “eating disorder in a needle.”
It does bring up the moral question about health care in America and the general over-prescription of medication. Certainly, there is a for-profit drive in marketing Ozempic as a weight-loss drug. That motivation is something that Jackie said, “opened [her] eyes” and “made [her] even more disgusted.”
Jackie‘s memoir, The Weight of Beautiful, will be published on September 26, 2023. It chronicles her life-long battle with an eating disorder and the struggle to heal through self-love.
“This is a story I’ve spent my whole life hiding, the story of how diet culture took over my life, plunging me into a world of starvation, filled with shame and secrets, that lasted almost 2 decades long,” Jackie wrote in a post on Instagram.
Ultimately, though, her journey is a triumphant one. “This is also a story of recovery. It’s a story that will blow you away,” she said.
Jackie was demoted to “friend” on RHONJ this season. She stands by her decision to focus on her recovery.
TELL US- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF JACKIE’S COMMENTS ABOUT OZEMPIC USE? WILL YOU READ HER BOOK? SHOULD SHE HAVE BEEN DEMOTED ON RHONJ?
[Photo Credit: Andrew Eccles/Bravo]
