Over the years, Oprah Winfrey has been proud and transparent about her weight loss journey. Now, she is forced to address online scams that have been “misusing” her name to promote weight loss gummy products.
On Monday, the media mogul took to Instagram with a “fraud alert” after she had been approached by five people in one week seeking the gummies.
“Somebody’s out there using my name,” Winfrey said to her 21.6 million Instagram followers. “I have nothing to do with weight loss gummies or diet pills and I don’t want you all taken advantage of by people misusing my name.”
In 2015, the 68-year-old billionaire purchased a 10% stake in Weight Watchers for a total of $43.2 million, BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported. The hefty investment aligned with her own Weight Watcher’s journey, which she shared in January 2016 with a video and a tweet. She announced that she had lost 26 pounds with the program.
However, Winfrey insists that she does not endorse weight loss gummies.
“There have been social media ads, emails, and fake websites going out and I want you to hear it straight from me, that I have nothing to do with them. Please don’t be taken advantage of and don’t give your personal information to them,” she captioned Monday’s post.
According to CNN, there had been sponsored ads “circulating online using Winfrey’s name and likeness to promote a product,” including an April 27 Facebook post, urging users to “Claim your fitness gummies from Oprah until the 30th.”
“These ads are a complete fabrication,” Winfrey’s representative Nicole Nichols told USA Today. “Oprah has nothing to do with this gummy product and does not endorse any such diet or weight-loss pill.”
Earlier this year, Winfrey challenged her Instagram fans and her bestie, Gayle King, to dump two-week-old birthday cake and leftover holiday food in order to press the reset button on a weight loss journey.
“If you’ve been waiting for the right day, the right time, or some kind of sign…this is it,” Oprah shared in a caption of a video
. “Today is the day. Day One starts now! Join me at ww.com so we can hit reset together and start 2022 on the right track! Goodbye two-week-old cake, hello hydration.”