Ricki Lake Says She Shed 35 Pounds Through ‘Sheer Willpower’ – Not Ozempic

Ricki Lake is showing off her slimmed-down figure after losing 35 pounds through diet and exercise alone over the past seven months.

The 55-year-old former talk show host shared a photo on social media posing confidently in a plunging one-piece swimsuit beside her pool. She says she “worked hard” for her trimmer physique and plans to maintain it through continued self-love and healthy habits.

“I worked hard to get here. Plan to stay awhile,” she wrote, adding hashtags like “#feelinggoodinmyskin” and “#nofilter.”

Lake’s dramatic weight loss comes after she shut down rumors in May that she used the celebrity-popular diabetes drug Ozempic to shed excess pounds. She told People magazine her slimmer figure resulted from “sheer willpower.”

“I am not superhuman, but I am someone that when I set my mind to something, I do it for the most part,” Lake said. “I have a lot of willpower. I’ve been big, I’ve been skinny. I’ve been 260 lbs; I’ve been 120 lbs.”

The Hairspray actress says her mentality has shifted in her 50s to focus less on a number on the scale and more on overall self-acceptance and health.

Lake shared specific weight loss tips like walking outdoors daily and reconnecting with nature. After her doctor doubted she could lose weight without medication, she took it as a personal challenge that she was determined to overcome through self-love.

The former Dancing With the Stars competitor has also been open about other personal struggles. In recent years, she suffered hair loss from depression and disordered eating but says her luscious locks have regrown thanks to hair care products.

In her personal life, Lake married lawyer Ross Burningham in 2022 after being introduced by a mutual friend two years earlier. The couple and their six children from previous relationships reside in Malibu.

Lake has two sons with ex-husband Rob Sussman, an illustrator. Her second husband, jeweler Christian Evans, died by suicide in 2017 after a battle with bipolar disorder.

In 2018, Lake spoke to uInterview exclusively about her documentary, Weed The People, after she and her husband took in a young girl with cancer. 

“My husband at the time, my beloved Christian Evans, who passed away last year, discovered CBD and cannabis for his healing, and also for his grandfather, who was dying of terminal cancer, and then also for this little girl that we met through social media, of all places, Twitter,” Lake told uInterview. “This little girl who was a fan of mine from Dancing With The Stars had a different disease called NF1, which causes tumors to grow on your nerve endings, and she was being treated with chemotherapy. Very unpredictably, my husband and I moved this little girl into our home for six weeks and went on this plight to find alternative medications for her to help her with her disease.”