Oprah Winfrey has been open about her diet struggles for many years, but her new ad for Weight Watchers includes her rawest outpouring of emotion to date.
“Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be. Many times you look in the mirror and you don’t even recognize your own self, because you’ve got lost, buried in the weight that you carry,” Winfrey said in the 32-second video that she tweeted out on Tuesday, encouraging her 30 million followers to “come join me.”
The 61-year-old media mogul’s heartfelt message tells the story of “Why I joined Weight Watchers,” and is played over streaming footage of her ongoing body-image battle.
“Nothing you’ve ever been through is wasted. So every time I tried and failed, every time I tried again, and every time I tried again has brought me to this powerful most moment say ‘If not now, when?’” she said in the motivating voiceover.
“I feel that way and I know millions of other people feel that way. Are you ready? Let’s do this together,” Winfrey challenged viewers.
The video, titled “Oprah’s New Weight Watchers Journey,” was released on Weight Watchers UK‘s YouTube channel on Christmas Eve and already has 35,500 views.
Winfrey teamed up with Weight Watchers in August, and told Ellen DeGeneres om October that she had invested $43 million for a 10 percent stake in the company. In one day, stock prices skyrocketed and Winfrey earned a whopping $70 million.
Having been known for her yo-yoing weight for decades, Winfrey told the diet company that she would only be a spokesperson if she tried it for herself — and when she lost 15 pounds following the company’s points system, she agreed to do the ad.
At her heaviest, Oprah weighed around 237 pounds, but lost 67 pounds in 1988 after going on a strict OptiFast liquid diet.
She even pulled a wagon full of fat onto the set of the syndicated “Oprah” show to signify how much she had dropped — and while the stunt gave her record ratings at the time, the dramatic weight loss was hard to maintain.