Real Housewives of Orange County star Emily Simpson is coming clean about her weight loss — and how she used Ozempic to “kickstart” her journey.
“We finished filming in November of 2022, which was eight months ago. When we finished filming, I had sort of a nervous breakdown,” the reality star, 47, explained on SiriusXM’s The Jeff Lewis Show on Wednesday, June 28. “I think I just went for four months hard when we were filming and I ate too much, drank too much, and just didn’t get enough sleep, didn’t exercise.”
Simpson told Jeff Lewis that she wanted to let her followers know that she didn’t just shed pounds “all of a sudden” in a “very short period of time” despite what they are seeing on season 13 of RHOC.
After seeing a doctor amid her depression and weight gain, “I did a full blood panel,” Simpson shared. “My cholesterol was high. I have zero testosterone. I was pre-diabetic, so she actually said, ‘Why don’t you do a semaglutide?’ which is Ozempic, so I did. I did that in December.”
The California resident added that she was on Ozempic for one month. (Per the FDA, Ozempic and Wegovy, another semaglutide, are typically used for chronic weight management or to aid in a weight-related condition such as type 2 diabetes.)
Though Simpson said her Ozempic use was a “great kickstart for me … [to lose] five to seven pounds,” she ultimately went off the drug because it “made me feel lethargic and it made me just not have a lot of energy, which was hard with three little kids.” Emily and husband Shane Simpson share daughter Annabelle, 10, and twin boys Luke and Keller, 7. (Shane is also the father of two daughters from a previous marriage.)
While Emily is one of several Housewives — including Dolores Catania and Margaret Josephs — to now admit to using a semaglutide or a similar drug for weight loss, she previously appeared to shut down the claims from fans who accused her of using Ozempic.
“You don’t know me and nothing will ‘revert back’ bc my arms are jacked from heavy lifting,” Emily responded to her followers via Instagram on Friday, June 23.
Emily went on to tell Jeff Lewis that she had liposuction on her arms, revealing that her arms had “always bothered” her, so she got a “new” liposuction treatment. She also got a breast reduction.
“When I healed from that and I came out of it, you know, eight weeks later or whatever, I looked completely different. … I felt like it was just a huge difference in my overall look just to have the thinner arms and just the smaller chest and I was so happy with the surgery, and I have so much muscle underneath that when he did the liposuction, my arms were just jacked,” she explained.
Still, it wasn’t just the immediate weight loss from Ozempic and the plastic surgery that changed her look, Emily explained. “Once all [the fat from my arms] was gone, I was like, “Damn, you can tell I’ve been working out for all these years,” she said. “I was so inspired by seeing this muscle that I just hard-core went a completely different route with food. I became very conscientious of what I was eating. I changed my diet completely. I eat mostly protein, very little carbs, and I work out like six, seven days a week.”
