Celebrity Weight Loss Ambassadors

I’d like to introduce America to the Jenny Craig weight loss method that has met with incredible success down under. I’ve seen the results for myself. And believe me, it really works. Here’s what some of my fellow Australians have to say about it

and took up to the stage where I couldn’t fit into anything I was going into a meetings and my maternity pants he called me a greyhound cuz I feel better that I can go and buy clothing which I couldn’t before I’m eating well, I’m enjoying it. And I’ve tried every diet and domain I can do things that I’ve never done.

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Eat your way thin, at Jenny Craig, a seat sharing will a very interesting ambassador. That was of course, John Newcomb an Aussie tennis champion, a male, thin male tennis legend with a massive mustache, who has never in his entire life been anywhere approaching fat. But you know, perhaps in the 1980s when Jenny Craig was beginning to launch their American products they thought we just need in rich white Australian with a massive moustache to sell Jenny Craig in those early days. So since then, of course, there have been so many celebrity weight loss ambassadors for Jenny Craig and other companies in the USA. These have included Mariah Carey, Jason Alexander, Sarah Ferguson, Monica Lewinsky, Kirstie Alley, and Valerie Bertollini, to name just a few. And so what we’re going to do today is run through a few memorable Australian celebrity weight loss ambassadors. But first, let’s review how the entire system of the celebrity weight loss Ambassador deal works. So number one, they target a celebrity. Number two, the celebrity is captured and then announced as a new Jenny Craig ambassador, and usually as they’ve announced their ambassadors, the ambassador has already commenced weight loss. The set celebrity is offered lucrative cash in exchange for giving Jenny Craig a massive raft of positive PR. And the celebrities of course provided free food and all kinds of extra support that is not normally offered to actual paying customers. Following the early days of weight loss the celeb is dutifully trotted out for daytime TV appearances. Jenny Craig ads and popped onto the website and Facebook group raving about how sad they were before Jenny Craig and how Jenny Craig has just been the bee’s knees for them at some point and for definitely not all celebrities, then there’s a phase of announcing that they have hit their quote unquote goal weight. Of course, the process of how the particular celeb is weighed, is completely shrouded in mystery and the financial details of the deal are usually not shared with the public. The Celebrity then usually regains the weight and then disappeared from Jenny Craig to be replaced by a brand new sparkling ambassador. Celebrities are always blamed for the weight regain, which ignores of course decades of weight science research that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that intentional weight loss by lifestyle methods just doesn’t work. And the only ones to benefit from this whole ludicrous cycle. The Jenny Craig shareholders well, they used to anyway, I have determined that there are sort of three categories of the weight loss ambassador. Number one is the not fat woman with body image issues usually targeted at a vulnerable moment in her life such as a divorce or a pregnancy ending less frequently They get actually fat people. And occasionally and seemingly maybe just for a laugh, they engage male celebrities. So let’s run through a little bit of a highlight reel of Jenny Craig’s Australian celebrity weight loss ambassadors just to sort of flesh out this pattern. first and then we’re going to talk about is the beloved Magda Sovetsky. She is an Aussie comedian. She is a gay icon. She’s an absolute legend, and she’s definitely fat and always has been back in 2009. She was paid $850,000 Ozzy for a very specific weight loss of 35 kilos, and she also received bonuses for every weight loss milestone that she met, so that made sure that she didn’t get all of her money until she lost all of the weight that she was promised to lose, which is an interesting carrot to dangle for her. Magda did manage to lose weight, and she was terrific for the Jenny Craig business. So since they put her on board as ambassador, the inquiries to Jenny Craig increased dramatically some reports saying 50% increase some reports saying enquiries increased by like 300%. But then, in 2011, she got dumped by Jenny Craig, because the executives got annoyed with her because her weight loss plateaued and then began to climb back up again. So she regained about 12 kilos and was unceremoniously dumped and vanished from Jenny Craig commercials. What a gal, Jenny! After Magda Jenny Craig approached Master Chef winner Julie Goodwin, but bless her heart, she turned them down, saying she didn’t want to lose weight, even though they offered her a quarter of a million dollars, which is like less than they offered Magda. Quote, Julie says, I don’t want to be thin. I don’t want to be anything different to who I am. So Julie Goodwin, we love you. So Magda was then replaced in 2011 by comedian and actor Rebel Wilson. So she’s known in movies like Pitch Perfect. She is also hilarious. Her goal in 2011 was to quote shed 25 kilos, and this endorsement just didn’t go very smoothly for Jenny Craig. So various outlets report that she lost about 15 kilos. But by 2012, rebel was on shows like Jay Leno in the United States, talking about eating cupcakes and brownies and things like that by 2013. It was very clear that rebel had not reached the weight loss goal that Jenny Craig had enforced on her and a statement was released quote, at the moment, rebel is based in the States and is concentrating on her acting career. Due to her busy work schedule. She is currently not on the Jenny Craig program, Jenny Craig’s, Amy Smith said she successfully lost 15 kilos and Thanks, Jenny Craig for their help and support. Isn’t that an interesting one? I thought Jenny Craig was really really good for fitting into busy lives, but smells to me like PR, don’t you think? Now rebel, really was a rebel she shortly after that, in January 2013, she launched a line of T shirts called fat Mandy with like cupcakes on the boobs. And it was pretty awesome for a while. And she was very, very funny. Now, of course, as we all know, in 2020, rebel has, again turned towards intentional weight loss and she’s lost a massive amount of weight. There’s a lot of conjecture about how she’s achieved this and more than one person has mentioned weight loss drugs, but no one really knows what rebel is doing. It’s none of our business what rebel is doing with her body. But either way, it’s really clear that this choice of weight loss ambassador for Jenny Craig was not the one that they wanted to portray. They needed someone easy. They needed someone you know, not one of these pesky fat people who just can’t lose weight on their ineffective programs. So in October 2011, enter Mel B Yes, Scary Spice always skinny British Spice Girl. And guess what? She just had a baby five weeks prior. This is reminiscent of course of Jenny Craig’s own weight story which continuously through her book she said she’s been using to quote unquote, relate to other people’s weight struggles. So Jenny Craig put on a tiny bit of weight. And going on that diet after her baby was what started her on the whole kind of feel as selling weight loss as a Korea. So Khorog Melby has just had a baby. Of course she wants to lose weight her body has changed. She’s always been thin in 24 Time, women’s weekly got copies of the contract that Jenny Craig did with Melby, which is kind of a coup because these figures are usually kept very secretive. So we found out that the fee Malbay was paid was us 200 grand. And there was a potential to increase this by another 25 pay if she lost if she got to the goal weight, so she’d signed up to lose 16 kilos. And also in her contract, she stood to earn us $40 For every person that signed up while she was speaking in class, she received all of her meals for free, and got $1,500 a month for a personal trainer, or quote unquote, food preparation assistant. So that’s a fairly lucrative deal, don’t you think? For someone who’s really just experiencing postpartum weight change, there’s this amazing quote from Amy Smith again, the boss of Jenny Craig saying, Mel had told the company that she doesn’t like dieting, so they’ve devised a plan that is ideal for women who have recently given birth, I just like to take a moment to remind everyone that the most ideal way to eat after recently, giving birth is however the fuck you want to eat. And don’t let any kind of companies like this near you, at such a vulnerable moment in your life. It’s just so podiatry. So Mel, indeed lost 16 kilos over just a few months. And in June 2022. She’s all over Facebook celebrating 10 years as an ambassador to Jenny Craig. I mean, when you add up how much money she would have made over that time, what a deal for her. I mean, this is the only ambassador who has stuck around for Jenny Craig and the only one I could find who hadn’t regained the weight. And this is clearly because A, this was actually a thin person to start with, and be a court her when she just literally given birth. And so this does not represent weight loss. This represents her going back to a body size that she was probably naturally going to anyway. But of course Jenny Craig stepped in at that critical point and took all of the credit. Talk about misleading advertising Hmm. Oh, and talking about misleading advertising. Melby appeared in a Jenny Craig ad, which ran from 2017, like just that Christmas period. So December 2017, to February 2018. diet culture high season, am I right? These ads included the line that people could lose up to 10 kilos of weight for a $10 program fee. And so in 2018, Jenny Craig was fined 38 grand in Australia for misleading consumers in the TV ads. The a triple C issued them three infringement notices saying that the weight loss firm had failed to disclose that customers also had to purchase food at an additional cost. They were concerned that the ads would have misled customers into thinking that they could lose 10 kilos for 10 Back when in reality, customers would have to spend a lot more than that because their food’s really expensive. Now, it seems that Jenny Craig have already forgotten all of those, quote unquote, frivolous lawsuits from the 1990s when they got in trouble for exactly the same thing. Bit of a turnaround happen in April 2012. A different choice of celebrity weight loss Ambassador came on board with Jenny Craig it was Dame Edna everage aka Barry Humphries, a 78 year old man 78 year old but I can’t I can’t get over this a 78 year old man. So the reason my breasts stopped there is that die culture is bad enough it picks on us all of our lives. And using dubious weight loss and Health Connection research claims. One of the things that even in the weight loss research is very clear is that weight loss in the elderly is very strongly related to early death and does not have any kind of quote unquote, health benefits. So this is why it sort of takes my breath away that Jenny Craig have paid very Humphries to lose weight at the age of 78. When there’s zero health benefits related to that, even though in the ads, it seems like he is thinking that he will live longer because he’s on this diet. So Barry slash David Now, for those American listeners who might not know what the hell I’m talking about. Barry Humphries is an Australian actor. He plays characters and Dame Edna everage his quintessential character so she’s very flamboyant female character whose signature line is Hello possums. Anyway, I’m digressing big time so Hey, Barry slash Edna pledged to lose 15 kilos cool thing And that women’s weekly article also had his contract where he was paid 200k. And then they offered him another 86k If he lost up to 20 kilos, so they wanted to nudge him up even more, that his age, it’s just downright horrifying.

And significantly berries to earn a lot less if you missed his weight loss targets. So yeah, way to force him. Berry also received $20 For every person who signed up to Jenny Craig during the period, he was fronting the ad campaign, as well as receiving all of the meals throughout the period of his contract. And again, like Melby, getting up to $1,500 a month towards his personal trainer or food prep assistant. Now, in spite of all of this help, Barry did not hit the goal. He lost eight kilos around 12 weeks and did one advertisement where he’s sort of perched next to a pile of lamingtons saying that he’s glad he’s not eating them.

And saying that, he knows he’ll get 10 more years out of life than he would have without Jenny Craig. So again, a deeply misleading ad and statement and sentiment. And as we all know, Barry Humphries died in 2023. Not long ago, in 2013. In the USA, Jenny Craig announced that it was going to stop using celebrity endorsements because they all say the same thing. Like it’s pretty boring. Like I use Jenny Craig and I lost weight. And they said that they were going to try different ways of marketing and advertising. But of course, no one told Australia and Jenny Craig hit Magnus Urbanski up again. So I think they realized that the Bansky was their most fruitful, most profitable ambassador and they really wanted to get her back. So they went begging caffeine hand and she rejected it. But then she accepted it. And this acceptance, I don’t know if it had anything to do with it. But this acceptance happened after she’d come out as a gay woman on TV in February 2012. It might have something to do with that it might have something to do with the amount of money she was offered. So the woman’s weekly article said that she was offered $1.25 million to come back, which is just an astonishing amount of money. What’s really sad is that when Magda came back on board with Jenny Craig and did the dutiful PR stuff, so lots of radio and TV interviews, she’s clearly blaming herself for regaining all of the weight that she’d lost on the Jenny Craig program. She’s sort of blaming that she broke her ribs. she’s blaming something called calorie amnesia. She says, you know, you’re busy, you’ve got long hours and it just creeps up. And then when you put the weight on, of course, you don’t want to get off the couch and you don’t want to exercise she said, it just gains momentum, your portions get bigger again, and you start to forget calorie amnesia as they call it. So she’s back on board with Jenny she’s dutifully blaming herself for the weight regain. But less than six months later, she was sacked again by Jenny Craig because she was reaching her goal weight. Now there was a lot of publicity around this time about them parting ways and of course Guess who gets thrown under the bus it’s not Jenny Craig and their ineffective product it is Magda extremely talented and amazing human being some of the commentary from particularly from breakfast radio people like Maddy, John’s were just so cruel, saying that she shouldn’t get rewarded for getting fat again, it was just an awful display of Australian fat phobia at its finest. So Jenny Craig spokespeople released a statement in 2014, saying Jenny Craig and Magda Sanski can confirm that their working relationship will not be continuing. Magda will pursue her weight loss journey privately due to confidentiality were unable to discuss this matter. So no one is saying who ended it or why it ended. But in 2019 on a TV interview, Magda said that she was sacked and humiliated by Jenny Craig because she didn’t reach the terms of her contract. It’s really really awful treatment of someone who is a national treasure the fat phobia demonstrated by gala level press, the complete lack of curiosity from the media in general about what is going on when this is so clearly a cycle for almost all celebrity weight loss ambassadors it’s just unforgivable, is another train wreck example of Jenny Craig so in in 2017, they decided to pay Brendan for Viola who was an Aussie footballer. He was fat. He was posted sporting career and now a dad so he stopped Did lots of wildly conflicting reports about his starting weighed about 127 kilos, and he wanted to get down to 103 kilos, which that’s a that’s a fair whack of weight loss. During his time he lost significant amounts of weight. So he lost 16 kilos, and his contract said that he had to lose weight for six months. And then for the subsequent year, he needed to stay at that lower weight. He needed to stay within a two kilo range, and he needed to attend Jenny Craig for monthly weigh ins. So in a radio interview in 2023, he’s actually talking about what he needed to do in order to make those weight limits each month. He’s definitely not just eating Jenny Craig food and showing up and he’s talking about fasting for extended periods, and doing really intense things like frequently visiting saunas and steam rooms and going for a really long walk. And he’s saying for about a week he virtually didn’t eat, he ended up getting nosebleeds because he was just so physically frail. And then on the radio, he says, quote, there’s a great outcome. I woke up the morning of I went and weighed in I got to 107 they all clapped and said well done. Next to the Jenny Craig, no word of a lie. There’s a McDonald’s and after every weigh in, I’d go and cheat myself. I went in and bought two chickens a Big Mac, Logitech, smash the first chicken and almost spewed I got my weight. I got my cash. Yep. That’s the dream of Jenny Craig. That’s absolutely how people end up when they’ve been restricted for long periods of time. They’re just going to go and eat and eat and eat. And there’s absolutely no judgment here from me about him going straight to Mac as good on him. But once again, we can see this thread of the problem is the person and no one’s really saying that the problem is the restriction. And of course Brenton is now regained all of the weight that he lost on Jenny Craig plus more. The pain goes on. However, we still got a current Jenny Craig celebrity weight loss ambassador, don’t really know what’s happening to her now that Jenny Craig has gone broke. But she’s definitely the current darling and still very much in the honeymoon phase with Jenny Craig. So she was signed on in September 22. For those who don’t know, Casey Donovan, she’s a First Nations singer. She’s an incredible singer. She won Australian Idol when she was just 16 years old. She’s just amazing. And she is a fat person. So once she was introduced to the Jenny Craig ambassador, she was introduced, having already lost seven kilos in the first month. And she is saying that she wanted to lose 20 kilos, because she wanted to start a family with her girlfriend. And again, here’s another kind of thread you know, getting women at vulnerable times in their lives. Being told that you have to be smaller in order to have children is just it’s a devastating thing in November 22, so very soon after signing on, she’s announcing excitedly on Instagram that she now weighs under 100 kilos for the first time in her life. She says quote, Jenny Craig is a life changing lifestyle thing. You’re not just trying to fit into a dress for a day, you’re trying to fit into a dress forever. Donovan said, that’s one thing I really loved about the program is support and feeling great about myself. Now a lot of people in this weight loss honeymoon will sound like this. She’s been in it for a few months, she’s seen radical weight change. And like many people who have always been larger feeling like you’ve got this kind of magic ticket to thin town feels amazing. It feels like you know the ticket to love and acceptance and fertility and all of the things that you want out of life. But I’m, I’m a bit worried about Casey, because I’m seeing some warning signs for her as well. So I in a article in the Canberra weekly, it says she has set herself a goal to reach the 20k weight loss mark through Jenny Craig. Before starting with the company and using other methods of weight loss, she managed to get down from 136 kilos. And now she really wants to test herself. Quote, being in double digits. I just thought you know what, why not try and get down to 90 kilos and give it a real crack and reset your body. We all know our bodies, and they all want to take us back to a safe number. So I just want to retrain my body. She says, Oh, that worries me, Casey, because this is starting to sound like an eating disorder. What an eating disorder does is set your goal weight set you kind of a benchmark and then when you hit that benchmark, it says let’s go let’s keep going let’s go down further. And that is not a sign of health. That is a sign of potentially something really troubling there. So it’s, it’s a bit of a worry. So that’s our recap everyone. We’ve just talked about six different celebrity weight loss ambassadors here in In Australia, we have one of them who was always thin. To begin with, she’s the only one who’s stuck around. And she’s the only one who’s maintained a lower weight on the Jenny Craig program, though Lord knows if she’s still eating it over the five fat people that have been involved with Jenny Craig, the majority of them back to their higher weight, one of them Casey is still in that honeymoon period. So the regain phase hasn’t happened yet. And poor old rebel who knows what’s going on with her. But there’s definitely a very deliberate attempts to suppress her weight there. So a celebrity weight loss ambassador is not the sparkly lasting, the an ideal even if people are paid hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And given all of the assistance that they could possibly have in the world. This is not possible. And if there’s one thing I want listeners to take away from hearing all of these stories is that if you’re struggling, losing weight using these methods, it’s not you it really is the ridiculous, ineffective diets. We have known this in our last episode, I talked about the scientific review article from Ghana and Willie, which was really questioning why we are doing these weight loss interventions and saying really calling for the end of them. This is what needs to happen. We really need an end to these dreadful weight loss companies and their dubious tactics. So what’s changing in the Australian landscape? Well, sadly, not much. I mean, Jenny Craig has gone but the living hellhole of weightwatchers is still going and still going strong. Their latest victim slash celebrity weight loss ambassador is breakfast radio show host and one half of the Kyle and Jackie O show, Jackie Oh, so she is definitely an example of the not fat celebrity weight loss ambassador. And she’s a stunning example of just how much bullshit we’re being fed when it comes to this concept. And specifically Jackie is another example of how the normal experience of short term weight loss followed by weight regain gets blamed on the customer, not the company, not the method. So during 2021, this was during all of those COVID lock downs, Jackie signed a deal to lose 10 kilos and was reportedly paid half a million dollars by Weight Watchers. So Jackie is absolutely not fat, but she’s definitely not super slim. And she’s described herself on many occasions as a yo yo Dieter, so someone who’s metabolism would definitely have been affected by going on and off diets. So what happened was on the Weight Watchers website, there’s a video where Jackie is admitting quote unquote, that she did lose 10 kilos on Weight Watchers, but then she quote, fell off the wagon and put it back on. And she says, Hey, I went through a rough patch where I wasn’t being as good as I should. And you hear that she’s blaming herself. And then she says that she started the program again and says quote, once I got back on track with the Weight Watchers program, again, like clockwork, I lost 12 kilos. I think it’s really important to know that when you fall off the wagon, you don’t beat yourself up too much. You just get back on and start again, it’s fine. Or Jackie, or you could realize that this is a fucking trap and stop doing the same thing over and over again. So this is kind of an unbelievable detail. But there’s a picture of Jackie O on the Weight Watchers website, which says that she’s lost 20 kilos. And that’s wild, because what they’ve just done is added the two sets of weight losses together, ignoring the array game period. It’s just absolutely criminal. There’s a tiny disclaimer underneath Jackie saying that actual paying customers not celebrities paid half a million dollars that can expect to lose up to one kilo a week and Results may vary, which is quite cheeky. There are in the media with Jackie O particularly. It’s very weird. There’s wildly conflicting statements about how she’s eating with the Jenny Craig deal. So in August 2022, she said, quote, carbs and wine are two of my favorite things in life. So when someone tells me that I can have those two things and still lose weight, I am on board. So here she’s really saying that she’s appreciating Jenny Craig because Jenny Craig plans allow her to have carbs and have wine, but who the hell knows what the truth is? This is the world of the weight loss celebrity Ambassador it’s all smoke and mirrors. So it gets weirder in September 2022. She claims to be anti diet. She says quote I’ve done with dieting if you diet most likely at all. comes back on because you can’t sustain it. A 47 year old told The Daily Telegraph. And that’s an interesting admission as a weight loss company ambassador, mid contract and mid weight cycle. But then in April 2023, so quite recently, she’s talking and she’s sounding really restrictive. So in a chat on her show with her co host, Carl Santa lands on live radio, she says basically, that she is sticking with smoothies, high protein and veggies and no cups. So she says quite pleased. This is really disordered. He says, I cook steak and I slice it and then I’ll just have a little sliver of steak if I’m hungry. She said, a dog would eat more says Kyle. Jackie explained that she cooks a steak and would then snack on it for several days and admitted that it took her five days to get through a whole slab of steak. This is starvation, everybody. This is absolutely different to her telling the world that she’s able to do this and have carbs and drink wine. There’s another kind of disgusting angle to all of this, which has to do with her radio partner Kyle Sandilands, who, by the way is fat. So in 2022, they were inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame during the Australian commercial radio awards. When they got up to do a speech, I’ll says, quote, I thought Jackie was my best mate. There’s obviously going to be no sex there because she’s stacked on the kilos. Gross. There’s no words, no words. And then just a few days ago, after Jackie has been talking about starving herself and taking five days to eat a piece of steak, he says this to her, quote, you finally got a decent body, your rotable again.

I feel sorry for Jackie O being caught up in this misogynistic world of sexual objectification. I also my feelings about these weight loss companies have just become very strong after looking at all of these stories. These are celebrities that these are human beings and being subjected to such intense pressure through these contracts. And taking these kinds of comments from people who are your colleagues. I mean, that that kind of comment should be illegal and snackable for a man to speak to a woman like that in 2023. It’s just it’s making me so mad. But look, there you have it, everyone. It is the really murky and disgusting world of the celebrity weight loss ambassador. So in spite of decades of weight loss research saying, Look, this doesn’t work. Unless you develop a restrictive eating disorder. The parade of celebrity centers just keeps on appearing and it’s still selling us the same old tribe. It really needs to stop. I have had a guttural Okay, everyone looked that is all the time that I have for today’s rant. Thank you for joining me. It is time for me now to go and have a car but a glass of wine and to just think about the very imminent departure of weightwatchers as the next dinosaur to kind of go extinct. Okay everyone until next week, look after yourselves. Trust your body. Think critically. push back against diet, culture and trap from the crap