Last week, Serena Williams confirmed that she started taking a GLP-1 medication last year, roughly six months after giving birth to her second daughter. Serena not only confirmed that information, she packaged the news alongside her new “celebrity ambassadorship” with Ro, the medication she’s taking. Ro is just the brand name of the GLP-1, like Ozempic or Mounjaro. Ro is relatively new, and apparently Serena’s husband Alexis Ohanian is invested in the telehealth company (he’s also on the board). The difference between Ro and Ozempic is mostly about branding too – Ro’s tagline is less about “this is a medication for diabetes” and more about “take this if you want to lose weight.” Even for American standards – and we’re so used to seeing commercials for prescription meds – this feels a bit off-putting and like Serena is glossing over the seriousness of what it means to take these kinds of medications.
I bring up Americans’ blasé attitude towards any celebrity’s prescription-med endorsement because it feels like a lot of British people are especially horrified by this Serena-Ro stuff. Jameela Jamil wrote a lengthy Instagram post about it and I’ve seen some TikTok analysis about the actual medication, versus the message being sent that Serena specifically takes this medication to keep her weight down. Personally, I find some of the commentary patronizing, especially when it’s white women telling Serena that she just should have accepted her body and her post-pregnancy weight gain.
I also feel like there are so many (thin) people who are really faux-concerned about people losing weight via medication. That’s been happening, even before Serena’s Ro commercial – people who have never struggled with their weight patronizingly telling people that they should just work harder. Specifically with Serena, her body changed so much with her first pregnancy, and I remember the lengths she went to lose weight so she could come back and play tennis. She was on some really extreme diets and working her ass off, and the weight just wasn’t coming off. All of which to say, I do not “blame” Serena for taking Ro or becoming a Ro ambassador, but there absolutely could be more nuance to how she discusses all of this.
Screengrabs courtesy of the Ro commercial.
The most unseemly part is the fact that her hubby is an investor but I bet a lot of rich people are, given how popular/lucrative these drugs are right now.
I’m typically not a fan of the celeb/prescip med endorsements but if Serena has found the drug life-changing and truly believes in it’s efficacy then at least it feels authentic. She’s a good ambassador in that sense.
Also, presumably people are taking GLPs with the assistance of a doctor (is there a black market for these things?) so I would assume people ARE aware of the risks and adverse side-effects.
IDK I’m a thin person but it does feel like people are just mad that some folks are taking what they perceive to be “cheat pills” which is fucking ridiculous. Because if you know anyone who’s ever struggled to lose weight, then you’d know that they’ve tried almost everything before they started on GLPs. I personally have two close friends who are on them and I have to say: they look fantastic and so far both of them say they feel great. We don’t seem to do this with other meds like anti-depressants which can also have long term health effects. In those cases we tend to realize that if the drug greatly improves people’s quality of life, then maybe the risk is worth it.
Have always been the ‘fat girl’ – genetically, i am cursed.
In HS i starved myself to be something close to ‘normal’. but as i got older it was harder and harder. i hit perimenopause in my 40’s, and the weight just kept slipping on, and then when real menopause, and a foot surgery happened, i fell off the cliff.
After fighting with my insurance for the last 2 years – they finally approved me for a GLP1. But the cruel reality is that i had to pay full manufacturer cost – $1400/month. I know that ppl like Oprah and Serena don’t have to worry about the costs, but a normal American – even the discounted cost from the manufacturer coupon program is still $500 a month.
In the end – i decided to follow my PCP recommendations, and will have bariatric surgery early next year, as it has the best long-term outcome. even if it is one of the hardest lifestyle changes.
JFC $1400 a month?!?!? God I DESPISE our “healthcare” system.
I hope your insurance at least covers part/all of the bariatric surgery because that ain’t cheap either. It DOES suck that these drugs are cost-prohibitive for so many.
I think, her husband’s financial investment should have been mentioned during her promotional campaign, if she didn’t. Other than that, I didn’t get Jameela’s point. We know these drugs have many side effects, it has been discussed in every article, every conversation I listened to. James O’Brien radio show hosted a lot of discussions about it and a lot of active users of the similar drugs called in and shared their experience. There were people with body image issues who abused the drug by manipulating their own health data to get access to it, but many more people around Serena’s age who had a hard time with losing weight after birth or after a certain age and these drugs helped them. As long as you take it with the advise of your doctor and monitor for any side effects, I don’t get the controversy. (Disclosure: I am a thin person, never had an issue with my weight.)
I don’t have a problem with Serena promoting a telehealth company that she or her husband has a financial stake in without disclosure. Neither of them is presenting as medical professionals, which would ethically require disclosure of investment.
Thin people like to gate-keep thinness. When I lost weight many years ago through diet and exercise, my thin friend was livid, and expressed her ‘concern’ that I now have an eating disorder, accused me of being mentally unstable, and said I am fundamentally a f-t person and that I should just accept my natural disposition to be big. You can’t win with some people. If Serena hides it, she’s accused of not being honest. If she’s honest, she’s accused of not being honest ‘enough.’ If she explains it in a more nuanced way, it’s not ___ enough. Goodness, what an exhausting obstacle course. Thin people can shut the f up with their concerns over how others manage their own bodies.
Now Knowing her husband is an investor, I honestly respect her more for being a paid spokesperson—she could have just pretended not to be making money if she spoke about her personal use, not in an ad. Hopefully that makes sense. But once someone’s a paid spokesman, I expect them to have made the best financial deal they could.
I like Jameela, i really appreciate all the points she makes as she spends years untraining the internalized misogyny that lives in most of our brains.
i like Serena. She is an insanely impressive business woman and athlete.
We have no idea what the long term effects of these drugs will be.
That said, i have a medical condition that i take one of these drugs for.
it did not make me thin. But my bloodwork numbers are vastly improved.
The pharma industry at its core is evil.
Prescription drugs should never be allowed to advertise at all.
But the medical profession (if we ever wrestle it back from for-profit evil) is making our lives better.
As humans, we hope for the best, hopefully do research that comes from medical journals, not the drug public relations page. And deal with our struggles with health and body image in a cruel world where the tastes are set by 50yo pedophile men.
Sometimes we don’t know the right thing.
I truly detest so much of the discourse around GLP-1s, there seems to be so much anger that people are ‘cheating’ to lose weight rather than using a legitimate medication to treat a legitimate issue. And I feel quite sorry for Serena as she seems to have been open about her usage and doesn’t seem to have disparaged her old bigger body, just said she’s happier in a smaller one (that I’ve seen).
But then again I’m currently on a GLP-1 (and loving it) so I’m taking it personally. One thing I would love to see more discussion on is the mental health benefits from the drug eradicating food noise and giving people back self control: I genuinely feel my quality of life has improved GLP use, purely because there’s more in it then just thinking about food all the time.