Super-slim waists, thin arms, hollow cheeks and visible collar bones were in the spotlight on the Golden Globes red carpet earlier this month, with A-listers looking thinner than they have in decades.
Insiders say the popularity of GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have made curves on the red carpet passe, marking the return of the ultra-skinny bobblehead body of the 1990s and early-aughts.
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Dr. Michael Hakimi, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, estimated that in recent years, most stars ranged in size from a 2 to an 8. Fans typically saw slim-but-somewhat womanly bodies on red carpets.
“Now,” he said, “we’re seeing between a 0 and Size 2 — even from the people we’re used to seeing with fuller figures.”
The new class of weight-loss meds has become so popular in Hollywood, Hakimi told Page Six that celebrity and high profile clients are having GLP-1 “parties” of sorts where deep-pocketed hosts hire nurse prescribers to introduce guests to the weight loss medications, and get them prescribed.
“I hear it’s becoming as prevalent as Botox parties,” he said.
While A-Listers such as Oprah, Kathy Bates, Rebel Wilson and Elon Musk have been open about experimenting with the trendy meds, insiders say many more celebs — even those who have never seemed to struggle with their weight — are using them.
“Even really skinny people like to be on Ozempic, especially these people in Hollywood because they don’t get hungry. It makes them less hungry,” Dr. Jennifer Levine, a plastic surgeon based on the Upper East Side, told Page Six. “Even people that are super, super thin might be on micro doses because they’re able to maintain their weight and don’t feel like they’re starving themselves.”
And, once stars get to a goal weight, doctors say many are likely to stay on a GLP-1 to curb hunger and maintain the weight loss.
“They can’t get off it — they want to maintain their weight which they can’t do without the drug so they have to be on a smaller dose,” Levine said.
She also suspects some are taking too much of the medications, which were initially used to treat diabetes and work by lowering blood sugar, increasing insulin secretion and making you feel full longer.
“Not everybody needs to be on such high doses — there’s a way to safely use the drug without making people look scary thin,” Levine said.
Off the red carpet, Hakimi noted that political powerhouses are also looking slimmer as of late.
“Hillary Clinton looked like she was on it. The people in the cabinet — Mike Pompeo looks like he’s getting skinny,” Hakimi said.
The dramatic, often rapid weight loss from GLP-1s can result in a host of cosmetic complications that, for the Hollywood set, require surgical intervention.
“You can lose too much too fast and you end up with sinking skin,” said Hakimi, who’s been doing more and more liposuction — to contour the body after weight loss — with 20- and 30-something patients who have used the drugs.
Skin sagging can become such an issue for GLP-1 users that many are opting for facelifts at a youngish age.
“With weight-loss patients, they have that laxity and jowling that can’t be effectively addressed with fillers,” Dr. Daniel Barrett, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, told Page Six. “If you try to fix laxity with fillers, you’d have to overfill the face, which would create an unnatural look that appears really strange — an example of this might be what Madonna currently looks like.”
What’s more, Barrett said, wealthy celebrity patients in their 40s and early 50s — whether they’ve used GLP-1 medication or not — are eschewing filler in favor of facelifts to better correct drooping skin and to avoid the distorted, puffed-up look of injectables gone wrong.
If you can afford a facelift — the average costs range from $10,000 for a minimally invasive one to upwards of $100,000 — Barrett said they “offer a better long-term result.”
“Getting filler when you need a facelift is really just wasting your money,” the plastic surgeon emphasized. “You’re not really addressing the fundamental problems and you’re making it more challenging to later do what’s actually needed.”
Hakimi says his facelift patients are skewing younger. He recently performed one on a star who was just 38 years old.
“It was to treat the hanging skin and laxity under the chin,” he said of the musician who had lost a significant amount of weight with GLP-1 meds.
Power players are also wanting to add volume back to their butts and boobs after dropping significant pounds.
“I’m seeing a lot of high profile individuals ask for breast and butt lifts. They lose the weight then they come to my office asking for a Brazilian butt lift and breast augmentation,” said Hakimi, who has seen an uptick in requests for subtle silicone breast implants.
Dramatic weight-loss and the cosmetic procedures that follow are having an effect on the logistics of shooting film and TV shows. Facelifts require far more scheduling considerations than simple fillers for stars given the recovery time.
Barrett notes that the immediate downtime is 10 days, but it takes at least two months to be camera-ready. Even that can be far too soon. A star doesn’t want to start shooting and look drastically different.
“[You see] optimal results at six months,” he said.
For those not looking to go under the knife, savvy makeup artists can help.
“What I will advise [for clients with extreme weight-loss in their face] is ‘let’s lift the look of the brows so people don’t focus on your cheekbones,’ ” said Rachael Weingarten, a celebrity makeup artist who has worked on film and TV shows. “I’ll build up the cheeks with a bit of bronzer underneath and then fill them in with blush.”