Rosie O’Donnell reveals surprising reason she refused her doctor’s advice during her weight loss journey

Rosie O’Donnell shared insight into her 60-lb weight loss transformation, revealing that she didn’t experience any adverse side effects from taking GLP-1 medication.

The 64-year-old, who has been open about her journey with weight loss medication, shared on the Bleep! With Ana Navarro podcast how she avoided the more harrowing side effects of Mounjaro, a GLP-1 usually given to diabetes patients that works to suppress the appetite.

Common side effects of Mounjaro include nausea, vomiting, stomach pains, heartburn, constipation and diarrhea. Rosie was able to sidestep these issues by starting at a lower dose, as she explained on the podcast.

Rosie’s journey

“I did the lowest dose for [the first] year with 2.5. Then I did [the second] year at 5, and now I’m just finishing year [three] at 7.5,” she said.

“I wanted to go slow because I know that it overwhelms me when I have lost it quickly before…I like doing it at a slow pace. I like how it feels that I’m not sick, that I’ve never had any kind of side effects.”

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Rosie’s doctor initially suggested that she up her dosage in the first year, a directive that she flat-out refused. The comedienne added that she will increase her dosage “one more time” before going off Mounjaro for good, following a three-year journey with the medication.

Battling health issues

Rosie’s health suffered greatly before she embarked on her weight loss journey, with the star surviving a major heart attack in 2012 and being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2022.

See Rosie’s transformation below…

She previously shared with People that Mounjaro “saved her life”, after growing up with an unhealthy relationship with food. “When my mom died, all of us children gained weight,” she told the outlet. “My father would give us a one hundred dollar bill, and we would go to Foodtown to do the food shopping.”

“Now if you’re 11 years old and you’re shopping for a family of five, there’s nothing nutritious about it,” she continued. 

“It was Entenmann’s and Cap’n Crunch, and we would always say, ‘Subtotal please,’ and when it got near one hundred, we’d put back the chicken and the hamburger meat. Everyone got heavy. Everyone was in such grief and trauma.”

“And so Mounjaro saved my life,” Rosie said. “I’ve lost a pound or two a month for three years.”

An open conversation

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The mother of five called it a “miracle drug” and explained how it shut down the food noise she had been living with her entire life.

“It’s a miracle drug,” Rosie said. “I was stunned how it quieted the food noise. I’ve had trouble with my weight my whole life. I know some people are ashamed to talk about it, but I wanted to share how it helped me, and I don’t like secrets as a whole.”

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Rosie’s weight loss isn’t the only transformation she has undergone in recent years. 

She also received a facelift in early 2026 due to the sagging of her skin from the weight loss, and explained in her Substack that the decision was a difficult one due to her moral objection to plastic surgery.