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‘The Biggest Loser’ Winner Ali Vincent Opens Up About Regaining Weight

Ali Vincent became the first female winner of The Biggest Loser after losing 112 pounds in 2008. Now, the reality star is speaking out about her emotional issues, after revealing earlier this year that she had regained almost all of the weight she lost after being sexually assaulted while getting a massage. Watch what she said in the video above.

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The Biggest Loser gave me the opportunity to believe in myself, and I don’t know that I ever really did,” the hairstylist explained during an interview with pastor T.D. Jakes on an episode of his talk show that aired on Monday, December 5. “Everybody wanted me to and I wanted to for them, and I had the results to prove it. But do I really deserve to have everything that I dream of? Do I deserve to have this happiness?”

Ali Vincent
Ali Vincent

After admitting that her past was holding her back from achieving new goals, Vincent told Jakes that the ongoing emotional issues were sabotaging her weight loss. “I know that there’s stuff that I have to deal with, and I know that it goes back way far, but then I also know that I’m 41 years old. When am I going to do my own stuff? When can I just let it go?” she said.

Jakes, 59, replied, “It has nothing to do with age. You can be 91. Until you confront whatever it is that’s eating at you, it will live forever. You cannot allow what happened to you to control what is possible for you.”

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Vincent first revealed her weight gain in April. “On April 16th I did one of the hardest things in my life,” she wrote on Facebook at the time. “I joined Weight Watchers and weighed in close to the weight I started at on The Biggest Loser [234 pounds]. I swore I would never be there again, be here again. I couldn’t imagine a day again that I would weigh over 200 pounds. I feel ashamed. I feel embarrassed. I feel overwhelmed. I feel like a failure.”

In October, Vincent told Oprah Winfrey, who is a partial owner of Weight Watchers, that she had been sexually assaulted while getting a massage in 2015, an attack that she said caused emotional stress and led to much of her subsequent weight gain.

Ali Vincent
Ali Vincent in April 2008. Trae Patton/NBCU Photo Bank

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Earlier this year, Vincent exclusively told Us Weekly that she was embarrassed to leave the house after regaining weight. “People recognize me but … they never even put it together that I was the girl that won The Biggest Loser,” she explained in April. “When I tell them how they know me, they look me up and down with this confused look on their face. It makes me not want to leave the house.”

T.D. Jakes airs in nationwide syndication.

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