Oprah Winfrey Emotionally Recalls ‘In Living Color’ Skit Mocking Her Weight

Oprah Winfrey continues to open up about the dangers of diet culture and her own experiences with weight shaming and fatphobia. While recently appearing on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, the 70-year-old recalled the many times her weight was mocked for entertainment, According to the multi-hyphenate icon, her weight became a joke to many, including the sketch comedy show In Living Color. “In Living Color had done a skit where the woman was doing something, and she just kept eating and getting fatter and fatter and fatter and the comedy bit was that eventually she just exploded,” she recalled the 1990 episode where Kim Wayans portrays Winfrey’s talk show days. “The whole audience fell out [laughing] and the woman was me. The Color Purple actress also recalled a time when she felt most “offended” by a TV Guide magazine issue. Winfrey recalled late critic, Richard Blackwell, dubbing her “bumpy, frumpy and downright lumpy” on the October 1990 cover. “I ingested that, I swallowed it like it was a pill designed just for my body and I took in all the shame,” she reflected. “And I accepted that this thing that people have labeled me with–being fat, being overweight, being unable to control my willpower, not having any willpower–that’s my shame. That’s it. They’re right, they’re right. Winfrey, who has found a way to “bury the shame” of her weight-loss journey, added that for “25 years” her weight was the butt of jokes. Since then, she has championed medicinal assistance in shedding pounds, although she has not confirmed exactly what she uses.

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