Stephen Fry Recalls Throwing Up 'Five Times a Day' While Taking Ozempic for Weight Loss

Stephen Fry says he tried Ozempic for weight loss — but it didn’t go as expected.

While appearing on the latest episode of the River Café Table 4 podcast, the 66-year-old opened up about his past experience taking Ozempic, an FDA-approved prescription medication for people with type 2 diabetes. 

It's one of the brand names for semaglutide — also known as Wegovy — which works in the brain to impact satiety, and is the latest weight loss trend.

The British actor, author and comedian — who admitted he’s “a bit obsessed about my weight” — said he tried the medication but ultimately quit because of its side effects.

“I tried Ozempic years ago; I'm an early adopter of these things,” he told host Ruthie Rogers. “I happened to be in America, and I'd read about it, and I asked my doctor in America, my physician as they like to call them, and he said, ‘I think I can get you some.’ He tried me on it, and the first week or so, I was thinking, ‘This is astonishing. Not only do I not want to eat, I don't want any alcohol of any kind. This is going to be brilliant.’” 

“Then I started feeling sick, and I started getting sicker and sicker and sicker,” Fry said. “I was literally throwing up four, five times a day and I thought, ‘I can't do this.’ So that's it.”

Taken once a week by injection in the thigh, stomach or arm, Ozempic comes with common side effects like nausea and diarrhea, and sometimes vomiting or constipation.

Back in August 2019, Fry appeared on BBC Breakfast and discussed his weight loss journey, revealing that he lost five-and-half stone (77 lbs.) in less than a year.

"I've lost a bit of weight so I'm feeling proud of myself,” he said at the time. “I was overweight, I have lost five and a half stone. I was 21 stone (294 lbs.) nearly in April. I was that heavy."

The actor admitted that he’s now "relieved" when he looks in the mirror and adds that his weight loss has benefited his mental health.

"I walk a lot and that helps my mood as well I find," he added. "It's not a guaranteed help for mental stress and anxiety or anything else but it does help me and it means I can listen to audiobooks as I walk, and podcasts, and you eat up the miles that way, and talking of eating up, eating sensibly."

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The Blackadder alum has discussed his health often in the past, including having his prostate removed after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“This was quite an aggressive little bugger,” Fry said in a February 2018 video. “As far as we know, it’s all been got. … I won’t know for sure until my PSA levels are checked. They should be 0 now because I have no prostate. But if there is anything left on the bed of the prostate, then I’ll need radiotherapy and the whole damn process will start again.”

While he was “feeling well and happy,” Fry added that “the rather unwelcome and unexpected adventure” had been hard on him.

“Cancer, in the end, that’s a word that just rings in your head,” he said at the time. “You’re not supposed to get cancer. I know it’s an old cliché, but you don’t think it’s going to happen to you. Cancer is something that happens to other people!”