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Chelsea Handler Reveals She ‘Didn't Know' She Was Taking Ozempic

Chelsea Handler shared that her doctor handed her Ozempic in case she ever "wanted to lose five pounds"

Chelsea Handler
Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Champagne Collet & OBC Wines

Chelsea Handler has entered the Ozepmic chat.

The comedian recently shared her experience with the Type 2 diabetes medication—which has become a popular celebrity weight loss drug—explaining that she didn't realize she was taking the drug after being prescribed it by a doctor.

"My anti-aging doctor just hands it out to anybody," the 47-year-old revealed during the Jan. 25 episode of "Call Her Daddy." "I didn't even know I was on it. She said, 'If you ever want to drop five pounds, this is good.'"

But while she tried the drug, Handler noted that she didn't like how it made her feel.

"I came back from a vacation and I injected myself with it," she recalled. "I went to lunch with a girlfriend a few days later, and she was like, 'I'm not really eating anything. I'm so nauseous, I'm on Ozempic.' And I was like, 'I'm kind of nauseous too.' But I had just come back from Spain and was jet-lagged."

Handler explained that her friend double-checked and asked her if she was absolutely sure she wasn't on the drug, to which Handler responded that she was just "on semaglutide," to which her friend stated, "That's Ozempic."

What's more? Handler admitted that she stopped using the drug because it wasn't medically necessary for her. She added that she now gives away the remaining doses to friends.

"I've injected about four or five of my friends with Ozempic, because I realized I didn't want to use it because it was silly," she said. "It's for heavy people. I have people coming over to my house, and I'm like, ‘OK, I can see you at 1, I can see you at 2.'"

However, Handler is just the latest celebrity to weigh in on the Ozempic conversation, as "Real Housewife of Beverly Hills" star Kyle Richards recently set the record straight when people attributed her new look to the weight-loss drug.

Richards responded to a user under her Jan. 5 Instagram picture of herself and her girlfriends—including former "Real Housewife" Teddi Mellencamp—after a workout session, writing, "I am NOT on ozempic."

In a second comment, Kyle said, "Never have been."

Earlier this month, TikTok star Remi Bader got candid about her experience with Ozempic in 2020, which she was prescribed due to being pre-diabetic and insulin-resistant. The 27-year-old revealed that going off the drug caused a cycle of "bad binging."

"I saw a doctor, and they were like, ‘It's 100 percent because you went on Ozempic,'" the influencer recalled during the Jan. 12 episode of 'Not Skinny But Not Fat' podcast. "It was making me think I wasn't hungry for so long. I lost some weight. I didn't want to be obsessed with being on it long-term. I was like, ‘I bet the second I got off I'm going to get starving again.' I did, and my binging got so much worse. So then I kind of blamed Ozempic."

But despite its weight loss side effects, Remi's experience with the drug was the opposite.

"I gained double the weight back after," she shared. "I posted about it one time and was open about my experience with it."

When E! News reached out for comment, a rep for the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk said Ozempic is "not approved for chronic weight management." The brand's statement said it's intended to treat type 2 diabetes, improve blood sugar and reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events for adults with the condition.

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