How Oprah Winfrey Impacted My Body Image: Read an Excerpt from Ira Madison's Searing New Book (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Ira Madison III’s new book, ‘Pure Innocent Fun’ and a photo of Oprah Winfrey.Photo:Random House; Eric Charbonneau/Getty

Random House; Eric Charbonneau/Getty

Cultural critic Ira Madison III has appeared onThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, The Wendy Williams Showand the Netflix dramaYou. Now, the writer and host of the podcastKeep Itis gathering his thoughts in a new essay collection.

InPure Innocent Fun, out Feb. 4, 2025 from Random House, Madison examines his own life through the lens of pop culture, fromThe Fresh Prince of Bel-AirtoBritney Spears.

Kit Karzen

Madison, a Black gay man from Milwaukee, Wis., “recounts the impact of some of his formative experiences including learning about gay sex from his mom’sLil' KimCDs; the most devastating election of his adolescence —Jennifer Hudson’s 2004American Idolelimination—and never getting his driver’s license in high school, making him just likeCher Horowitz inClueless: “A virgin who can’t drive,'” according to the book’s synopsis.

Below, in an exclusive excerpt fromPure Innocent Fun, Madison reflects on howOprah Winfreyimpacted his body image.

Random House

One day, Oprah will pay for her crimes. I’m not talking about making snake oil salesmen like Drs. Oz and Phil famous or the 2018 film adaptation ofA Wrinkle in Time; I’m talking about her documentation of her weight loss from the ’90s until now. If you were born in the ’90s, then Oprah has pretty much been the same size for most of your adolescence and adulthood. But for elder millennials, born in 1986 or earlier, and anyone older, Oprah’s journey with her weight has a very specific chokehold on you.

Oprah’s weight loss odyssey began with the November 15, 1988, episode (titled “Dreams Come True”) of her daytime talk showThe Oprah Winfrey Show, when she announced that she’d dropped a significant amount of weight in four months. With a feathered bob and dressed in a size 10 pair of Calvin Klein jeans, black boots with a sexy but sensible heel, a glittery belt and a body-hugging black sweater, Oprah looked like your auntie who let you go to the corner store to buy her Newports rather than the oversize-blazer-and-pantsuit-wearing-middle-school­ science-teacher energy she’d formerly served.

Oprah on the Nov. 15, 1988 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.Oprah.com

Oprah.com

And to further drive home the fact that she’d lost a lot of weight, she rolled out the exact amount in animal fat on a little red wagon. She wasn’t just hostingThe Oprah Winfrey Show; she wasdoingshows, honey. Oprah was showing out, and as a result, “Dreams Come True” became the highest-rated episode of the program’s 25-year history (and it remains so).

Oprah has since expressed regret for this moment. In 2024, she hostedABC’sAn Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolutionto discuss her use of Ozempic, the antidiabetic medication also used for weight loss, and how she finally conquered her struggles with weight. In the special, she blames the media for bullying her into trying fad diets, starving herself, etc., over the years and how much shame she has for carting out that wagon of animal fat. In fact, she started to gain the weight back the day after shooting “Dreams Come True.”

I’m not here to hold Oprah to some morality that I don’t even have myself — I used a version of Ozempic prescribed to me in 2023. It worked well for a few months, until the Writers Guild of America strike happened and I ran out of money for it (and a gym membership), even with the discount from my insurance, so that was the end of that! The only issue I have with Oprah discussing her weight shame and then doing a special about how Ozempic finally helped her is how it’s really only about helpingher. Which would be fine if the whole point of her talk show was about helping people. Every time she discussed weight over the years, it was all to justify to the public why she was on the latest fad diet. With Oprah, when there’s something to sell, objectivity always seems to go out the window.

Oprah Winfrey’s first episode in 1986.SplashNews.com

SplashNews.com

The Oprah Winfrey Showdebuted on September 8, 1986, and became incredibly influential because she sold relatability and not a sideshow. In 2002,Christianity Todaydescribed how she’d essentially become a spiritual leader to her viewers. Her friends became their new mentors.Dr. Philbecame their therapist.Suze Ormanbecame their financial planner.Dr. Ozbecame their doctor.Iyanla Vanzantbecame their life coach. Whatever books Oprah read, the people read.

This backfired after author James Frey wasrevealed to have fabricated or exaggeratedparts of his memoirA Million Little Pieces, which was an Oprah’s Book Club pick. To save face, she invited him on the show for a public tongue-lashing. I don’t even remember if Oprah uttered the words “I feel like I have been duped” to Frey, but I always remember her saying them, so they’re real enough for me. Oprah taught me to go with what I feel, even if it’s not necessarily the truth. Oprah could convince us to do anything — and this authority communicated a warm relatability. Inexplicably, she became everyone in America’s weight-loss guru because Americans are experts at taking personal anecdotes as facts.

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