Lying About Gastric Bypass: Star Jones Edition
Hooray, Star Jones news! It’s been almost a year since we even mentioned her. But Star was on Oprah on Wednesday, facing the music about her gastric bypass and the fact that she hid it from the general public–whether on purpose or just by omission.
In the clip I saw on Jezebel, Star apologizes to her colleagues for “placing a burden” on them and says she never asked them to lie, and that “Pilates and portion control” was invented by the tabloids. Oprah said “I’d heard Pilates too… I was doing Pilates and I went, well damn… what kind of Pilates is she doing?” Oprah goes on to say:
What I thought, as a viewer, is that you were… ashamed. And I wasn’t thinking ashamed of the weight because I really believed you, along with so many other people, when you were saying that you were fine being overweight. I thought you were ashamed of gastric bypass. I thought you were ashamed to say “I did it this way” and I didn’t, you know, work out every day and do the diet thing.
Star’s response is that it would have been “the easiest thing in the world to say gastric bypass” but harder to admit she had been “selling a bill of goods” for the last few years, and she didn’t want to talk about it at all. Then the clip ends.
I guess I would interpret “selling a bill of goods” that her whole “I’m fine being fat” was a lie, and that she didn’t want to admit it was a lie. But tell me if you disagree with my interpretation. I don’t feel like Star Jones is straightforward enough here for me to understand her, although I do understand simply wanting to keep it private. The Oprah blog reports on another part of the interview:
Jones admitted she was scared to disappoint people and ashamed that she wasn’t able to control her weight. “… I was an addict for all practical purposes, that I had never stuck to a real diet, that I’d never stuck to a real exercise program, and that when confronted by my doctor and the doctor said if you don’t make changes, you will die. I had no choice.” Jones said. “When you hear people say, oh, you took the easy way out, I would have longed for an easy way. It was not an easy way. It was this — the hardest struggle of my whole entire life and I still struggle.”
The ladies on The View then respond to Star’s appearance on Oprah’s show. They say things like “she looks great” and “she seems healthy and happy” and “we really do wish her well.” Then Joy Behar says:
We had to cover for her. I don’t know if you call that [a] “lie,” I wouldn’t call it a lie. But she did have her bypass, and we had to say it was with dieting and exercise, which it wasn’t. So now we all know the truth. So good. Let her go and have a happy life.
It’s interesting that she says “I wouldn’t call it a lie.” What else would you call it?
The View clip:
It’s a tough situation. Because does Star Jones have an obligation to set the record straight about “Pilates and portion control,” or does she have the right to keep her weight loss surgery private? People (even Oprah Winfrey) were misled into thinking they could lose drastic amounts of weight with “Pilates and portion control,” but was that Star’s fault? How about the average person who gets WLS… is it okay to pretend it was “exercise and diet” when it wasn’t? Why?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Media, Oprah, Star Jones, TV, Video, Weight Loss, WLS
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I feel like Star Jones might be motivated by attention from the press more than anything else. What better way to create controversy around your weight loss, than to lie about how it was achieved? If she wanted her privacy, she could have said “No comment” — and stuck to it forever.
Star Jones has the right to TRY to keep her WLS private. As a celebrity she has to expect that people are going to wonder and speculate about it.
I assumed the whole time that Star Jones had WLS and was just lying about it. You know, the way that every celeb in existence lies about their cosmetic surgeries.
The average person doesn’t have to answer to anyone about his/her weight loss or gain. Body weight is a private matter and is not appropriate for everyday conversation. People who inquire about other people’s weight loss/gain are just being unspeakably rude and should be told to mind their own business.
I’ve defended Star’s right to privacy on this site and others, and this just confirms it. I’ve felt and still sometimes feel the same shame she describes. I understand it deeply. And it’s why I’ve always wanted to leave her alone. Because I wish people would leave me alone.
That’s a difficult question. My FA side hates the idea that she would allow others to that believe “pilates and portion control” would create such a drastic weight loss, when in fact we all know that’s bunk.
However, the feminist in me sees this as yet another example of how women in the public eye (all women perhaps?) are made to feel as though their they owe the world an explanation for their appearance. Star’s body is her own, and it’s nobody’s business whether she’s fat or thin, and how she got that way.
Oh, but average people do have to explain their weight loss/gain to other people, because, let me tell you, having recently lost a lot of weight, people I don’t even know, but who I see regularly in the shops and on the street, feel perfectly entitled to interrogate me about it. They seriously expect me to tell them “the secret,” or whatever. And the fact that I find this intrusive seems genuinely shocking to them, because, after all, they’re complimenting me! Nobody’s yet directly asked me if I’ve had WLS, although I suppose that’s inevitable, and I actually do sympathise with Star, because she shouldn’t have to explain. Nobody should.
Hope everyone’s doing great today!
This is such a murky issue. The emphasis on weight loss is supported by an equally strong moralism to *how* you lose weight. My take is Bariatric surgery has many consequences: if someone’s willing to live with them, then who is anyone to judge?
The flip side is true: Ms. Jones could have really been a figure to say “You know what? Bariatric surgery isn’t a cheat; there are consequences and it can empower people.” She chose not to do that.
Every weight loss method has consequences, and frankly I’m as weary of the righteousness about losing weight as I am about how the weight is lost. I don’t see they actually help anyone choose the body they’re in — whether you lose weight or not, that’s the critical decision to make and the one I try to promote.
At this point I’m immune to the myriad of assumptions about how I lost 200+ pounds. I’ve heard so many opinions they’ve all become meaningless. And when people want the secret, I just tell them “believe in yourself, stop wasting energy on shame and forge ahead.”
And it saddens me that Star Jones did not do that — both for herself and the people she could reach. I don’t see how anybody wins in lying about it.
Great posts as always, Mo. Thanks!
I agree that body weight and health issues are private matters, but didn’t Star put her weight out there as a central part of her professional persona? After promoting a now-dubious body positive agenda, does she now have the right to expect to not be asked questions when her body weight drastically changes? I see this as similar to the recent case of Jennifer Love-Hewitt. She bitched when tabloids slammed her for her weight, saying that her weight shouldn’t be an issue and then six months later, appeared on the cover of a national magazine touting her newly thin again body. The media are like vampires — when you let them in, it’s very difficult to ask them to please leave.
And I don’t think WLS is an “easy way out” by far — it carries numerous health risks far beyond the surgery itself. But I do think that the difference between losing weight via WLS and losing it without WLS is like digging a 30-foot hole by hand and using a backhoe. This is not to say that weight loss is a moral issue, but I am kind of irked when I see people presented in those weight loss success stories that seem to be everywhere talking about their weight loss “accomplishments” in the same vein as someone who has lost similar weight through lifestyle changes and whose digestive system hasn’t been mutilated so that it doesn’t absorb calories and nutrients. My good friend Lisa had WLS about a year and a half ago and still eats the same unhealthy fast food diet she ate before but because her digestive system has been hacked, she loses weight regardless.
This really is nobody’s business. And yes, everyday people are put through some version of this type of cross-examination when they lose lots of weight (from neighbors SHOUTING THE QUESTION FROM ACROSS THE STREET), to people who leave a compliment hanging in the air, waiting for the answer, to people who just assume you are lying about diet and exercise.
Nobody–even a celebrity– owes anybody anything, not an allegiance to stay with FA, or to stay thin, or an explanation of anything.
If Star Jones hadn’t written an entire book about her “transformation” and how it came about through all of her hard work exercising and controlling portions–without a single word about her WLS–then I might agree it is nobody’s business. But she made it people’s business when she started discussing her weight loss.
And, she’s still lying. Her talk about diet and exercise was NOT “invented by tabloids.” She wrote a damn book! She needs to take some responsibility for the fact that she is the one who perpetrated this myth, rather than wanting to hold on to victim status.
So, my take: If somebody doesn’t talk about how or why they lost weight (or gained weight), it’s nobody’s damn business to discuss or speculate, unless you are very close to that person and have a genuine concern. But, if somebody chooses to make it an issue by discussing it, they can’t then turn around and insist they want it to be private.
Just to add, I totally agree with the first comment that if she wanted privacy, she should have refused to comment on her weight loss, period. But as soon as she starts talking about exercise and portion control and fails to mention WLS, she’s lying, and nobody should be faulted for calling her on it, especially since it’s a damaging lie.
I don’t personally care what Star does with her own body, but when asked about it, she could have said “mind your own business” or “no comment” or even “I’m not ready to discuss it yet” but she chose to perpetuate the diet and exercise meme. As a public media figure, she owes it to her viewing audience, the people who trust her, to not tell them complete fairy tales. The View is a pseudo news show, the women on it are supposed to be professionals, they should get dinged for lying and saying stupid things.
Private people can say whatever they want about their own WLS.
Celebrities should not tell the world about losing weight and treat it like it’s the most virtuous thing ever. But if they do, then they are fair game for the media as far as I’m concerned, especially when they make it their life’s work and become instant fat experts, writing tell-alls and talking to anyone who will listen.
Not to mention, diet talk, whether it’s WLS, exercise, portion control, etc. is BORING. There are a lot more interesting things to discuss!
People, people, PLEASE!
First, remember that Miss Jones is a lawyer…and how can you tell when a lawyer is lying? Her lips are moving.
Second, the attention this woman appears to crave just keeps on coming. Why? Because she’s thin now and we all know how people in our culture absolutely venerate thin. (Personally, I think she looks ghastly, but that’s just my opinion).
Thing is, there must be some portion of the FA world railing against treating weight loss as if it were right up there with finding a cure for cancer or AIDS. If not, then we ALL ought to be putting it on the agenda. Yes, if you WANT to lose weight it’s a great thing, but for God’s sake, folks, stop batting your mitts together for every report of someone dropping a few pounds. Save the applause for REAL accomplishments.
Miss Jones should indeed have been honest about the cause of her massive weight loss. By going on THE VIEW and saying “Yes, it was WLS, which has the potential to put my health and my very life at risk, but I did it anyway just to be THIN”; THAT would have been deserving of applause.
The thing about lying about WLS is that it leads to more and more lies. How would Star explain memory loss, rickets, beri beri, kwashiorkor, brittle bones, or any of the other many possible complications of WLS if she had any/some/all of them? Most of those complications are not results of Pilates and dieting and there is no way they could be passed off as such.
While I agree that it’s no one’s business how anyone loses or gains weight, when you’re in the public eye, you know that’s one of the main things that the media is going to jump on. If you lost weight through WLS and said it was diet and exercise, you’re just as bad as Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers for saying that dieting will magically make you thin forever (a lie is a lie is a lie, no matter who tells it). You’re setting up for failure people who look up to you and that’s a dishonesty I with which I can’t agree. I don’t think the disappointment her fans feel would be nearly as great if she had said from the get-go that “I’ve dieted and exercised and I can’t keep it up forever to lose this weight. My doctors are telling me the weight is killing me, so I’m going to have WLS.” Now, those of us who have been there done that with WLS know that the “fat is killing you” lie is just that, a lie (if it were true, I would have been dead of TEHFATZ 25 years ago). It’s also a lie that WLS is a safe, permanent weight loss method that works for the majority of people who have it (talk to the people who have had it and have regained their weight, have complications, or the ones who have lost loved ones to this travesty of a “medical treatment”). Add in all the lies of celebrities and how they lost weight (and can’t keep it off forever), and all the lies told by the companies who sell exercise equipment, and all the lies told by doctors who are schilling WLS, well, when a celebrity says I lost 200 lbs in 6 months or a year doing Pilates and watching my calories, I’m not just a little skeptical, I’m a LOT skeptical. And I refuse to forgive them those lies that mislead people into doing something that isn’t going to make them healthier, could possibly kill them, and might just make them sicker than if they didn’t do anything at all. But I can understand the honesty of saying “diet and exercise aren’t working, so I’m going to have WLS because I don’t want to be fat anymore and I think it’s killing me” and I wouldn’t think less of her for that.
At the end of the day, Ms. Jones can do whatever she pleases; it’s her life, and her body. What I find interesting is that she was ashamed of being fat, but fine with being a ingenious liar.
As a ‘celebrity,’ she is in the position of possibly being a role model. Instead of using that position positively, she’s basically turned her back on those that used her as an inspiration, both before and after WLS. I’m not sure why she was so ‘ashamed’ to admit to WLS, especially since looking at her, it was obvious, and probably one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood at the time.
Star Jones is the perfect example of “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”
I think that the fact that someone can lose a great sum of weight very quickly in only one of two ways: 1. through weight loss surgery or 2. by being deathly ill with something very serious, should be a fact that is more generally well-known and communicated. Having had weight loss surgery myself, I do not necessarily feel that it is my personal duty to be the spreader of this news. Nor do I feel that it is Star Jones’ job. However, I do think she crossed a line when she outright lied about it, because it continues to support the myth that those who have normal metabolisms and can lose weight only at a normal pace are not “trying hard enough” and that fat people just need to “knock it off”. I mean, honestly, who thought anything else had happened other than weight loss surgery, when she had readily admitted before that that she exercised basically never and had a huge appetite? Believers of the myth, I guess.
My close friends and family all know that I had surgery. The people I work with do not, because it is not their business, just as other aspects of my personal life are not their business. Same goes for strangers who make comments out of nowhere (hi, convenience food clerk who told me my body was “perfect just the way it was” and I “shouldn’t work out too much”, with whom I had previously only ever had conversations about when this week’s Newsweek was coming out).
I agree with Lori and especially with vesta44. “You’re setting up for failure people who look up to you and that’s a dishonesty I with which I can’t agree.” Exactly. If we just remove the whole fat issue and talk about this as if it was cosmetic surgery – a celeb who claims that her lack of wrinkles at age 50 is due to staying out of the sun and using some magic lotion, and is lying through her laser-whitened teeth – it’s not such a thorny issue; it’s just a lie, one that makes her look hypocritical and foolish.
Eh, I think we expect to know (too?) much about our celebrities.
But the fact remains that the dramatic weight loss is very public so…her refusal to have a definite comment (yes, no, none of your business) just seemed like a fumbled public relations moment. Celebrities/politicians/public figures, when will they learn?
I’m more interested in what drove her. I kind of think she’ll now be used as the latest role model of “there is no such thing as a fat person truly happy with their body”.
This is sick, but I’m curious to see if she has/will have medical complications or if she will regain the weight. Funny, how nobody is using the people with adverse affects of weight loss as proof of “diets, even surgical ones, don’t work.” Very funny.
Oh my issues with this are large. Ethically I think everybody has a right to privacy. So to me Star’s answers should have been “I prefer not to talk about private matters.” or the complete truth.
The lie of omission is just as devastating to the rest of the world as an outright denial of surgery would have been. I think if she (or anyone else) is going to speak about this, they should speak the truth.
As a person with “failed” WLS I committed to telling the truth from the outset, and when my results were not what I wanted and I finally changed my outlook on weight loss in general, I have continued to tell the truth, even though it is painful and humiliating.
Five years ago I never wanted to be in the position of someone using me as an example of success through diet and exercise. Now I don’t want anyone who is thinking about having a band to have any illusions of what their outcome will probably look like five years down the road.
I have many issues with this — I think that Star Jones like many other celebrities have the right to privacy. It’s annoyed the hell out of me that anyone who’s a public figure can’t take a shit in privacy. (Sorry to be crude but go figure.)
Star should have said “Look this is something private and personal I am not talking about,” And she should have left it at that. Period. No more talking about it.
Thinking about all this and y’all’s posts all day and just a thought: Everyone’s entitled to their privacy, yes. Everyone has the right to choose that.
But if you’re in a position to make a difference for other people in being open, be it on a widespread scale like a celebrity or in your own neighborhood, why not?
I think maybe some people are too sensitive about people commenting on their weight loss. The people commenting probably assume that you are trying really hard and they want you to know they notice. “What did you do to lose weight” is just a dumb question people blurt out when they don’t really know what else to say, like “Where did you get that shirt?” They aren’t going to run out and buy that same shirt. I don’t think the question is rude, just clumsy.
When your body — specifically, the weight and shape of your body — has been a subject of unwanted commentary for the greater part of your life, these nosy, intrusive questions, this unrequested praise, just feels like more of the same.
When your body — specifically, the weight and shape of your body — has been a subject of unwanted commentary for the greater part of your life, these nosy, intrusive questions, this unrequested praise, just feels like more of the same.
Totally agree.
As for “Pilates and portion control”, please…. if anyone thinks Pilates will create enough calorie burn or muscle mass to affect their weight, they are delusional. (Spoken as someone who loves Pilates!)
It is her business, but at the same time, I am so tired of reading about these thin actresses who say they work out for 45 minutes! a day! and eat a healthful diet.
Please.
Unless you are genetically blessed (which, granted, some of them are), you don’t get a body like that without a lot of work.
So it ticks me off to think that I work out way more than 45 minutes a day and am very careful about what I eat and I still am not as lean as they are. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT A LITTLE BIT OF EXERCISE AND PORTION CONTROL!
Unless you are genetically blessed (which, granted, some of them are), you don’t get a body like that without a lot of work.
True. But then most celebs want to give the impression that they come by their looks effortlessly. If they admitted to training like a Marine, they would lose their “allure”.
I think that Star Jones did have a right to privacy in the situation and the media’s obsession with how she got so thin just demonstrates how obsessed we are with physical appearance and weight gains/losses, usually as it pertains to celebrities. I think though that Star Jones did have a hand in making it seem like it was pilates and good food, and instead of vehemently denying the fact that it was brought on only by exercise, she added flames to the fire by playing coy about it and asking her coworkers to cover for her. It does show how gastric bypass has a type of stigma in this society that it really does not need to have.
“When your body — specifically, the weight and shape of your body — has been a subject of unwanted commentary for the greater part of your life, these nosy, intrusive questions, this unrequested praise, just feels like more of the same.”
I’m as anti-social as they get but that seems strange to me that someone trying to praise you for making a big change would be as bad as like a kid pointing at you for being big.
Punchy – it is as bad. I lost a lot of weight once – not through WLS, but through severe depression – and the constant stream of compliments was like death to me.
Not only did I feel as if “hello, CAN’T ANYONE SEE THAT I’M COMPLETELY MISERABLE??” but it was so very much praise that it obscured every single other thing I’d ever done with my life. So bam, not only was my unhappiness being completely missed in the flood of OMG YOU’RE SO FABULOUSLY SKINNY, but it was very clear to me that absolutely nothing I had ever done was worth anything if I was fat. And nothing was more worth doing than being skinny, since nothing else had much value.
Sorry I don’t mean it if I came off snarky – in writing there’s no way to indicate that I genuinely don’t understand. :) I guess I can’t relate, I’ve never been more than 200 lbs and every time I have lost weight it was because I was on some Jenny Craig or another. But the compliments were always welcome because even after losing 50 lbs once and dropping like six pants sizes I felt like I looked exactly the same and it was good to hear that it showed.
Katharine – even having lost weight on purpose, the comments get old. I have lost a whole lot of weight over the past year and a half or so and while I’m happy with it and feel good and all that, I get annoyed when that’s the #1 thing people comment about. In the same time I’ve also figured out what I want to do with my life and done it by taking part time classes, writing and editing for my school paper, getting two separate internships and (most recently) getting into grad school. But being less fat is somehow still more important.
And if one more person replies with “well, that’s because the weight is visible” I’m going to scream. Just because you can see a difference doesn’t mean it’s up for discussion. How about a simple, “what’s new with your life?” Then we can discuss what’s of the most significance to me.