11 Celebs Who Have Dieted for Dollars
Since signing on with Weight Watchers as a spokesperson in 2010, the Oscar-winning actress and Grammy-winning singer has dropped 80 amazing pounds. A contestant on American Idol in 2004 (when Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson were still judges), Hudson has long battled weight issues but today has a sexy new clothing line with QVC. “I think I represent every woman. I’ve been a big girl, and now - whatever this is, the average size, whatever you want to call it. I wanted the clothes to be [for] any girl no matter what her size," the 33-year-old told Women's Wear Daily.
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Sixty pounds. That's the post-pregnancy weight singer and fashion mogul Jessica Simpson shed after revamping her diet, starting a workout program, and signing on as a Weight Watchers spokesperson for a reported $3 million. Simpson, 33, says she's back to her pre-baby size and that the media frenzy over her once-buxom bod was "ridiculous and unfair." As the mom of two told Redbook, "Any woman who is pregnant and creating a life is pretty much entitled to eat whatever she wants as long as she's healthy."
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His friends have a new nickname for him: "Skinny." So says former pro football quarterback Dan Marino, 52, who dropped 22 pounds on the Nutrisystem program and has kept it off for three years. "I was able to stay in pretty good condition during my football career," said the man who led the Miami Dolphins to the playoffs 10 times in a 17-year career. "But after I retired, I started adding on a few pounds." As a TV sports analyst today, he could no longer hide "behind a helmet and pads," he said.
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"I'm Marie, and I lost 50 pounds on Nutrisystem," Marie Osmond famously said in an ad for the weight loss program that paid her $1.65M, according to a BankRate estimate. That was in 2007, but her weight issues go much farther back than that. When she was just 14, the producers of "Donny & Marie," the hit TV program she hosted with her heart-throb brother, urged her to slim down - or risk the show's cancellation. On Nutrisystem, the veteran performer (who has battled postpartum depression) dropped 45 pounds in four months.
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In his NBA heyday, Charles Barkley was known as the Round Mound of Rebound. A much svelter but still outspoken Barkley now says in a Weight Watchers ad, "I've won like a man as long as I've been a man. Now I'm losing like one. Come on, join me." (His efforts to hawk veggies have been less successful: "Broccoli's not bad. It's just not good.") Last year the TV analyst shed 38 pounds on Weight Watchers and then got caught calling his WW gig "a scam." He later clarified: "The fact that I’m dropping pounds, getting healthier and getting paid at the same time is my definition of a great scam."
The Duchess of York was once called the Duchess of Pork (by the British tabloids - who else?). In recent years, Fergie has embarked on a "relentless regime" to stay healthy that includes a "strict diet of blended foods and intensive workouts," reports The Daily Mirror. “I may have lost 30 pounds, but I want to help combat global obesity," said Fergie. “I want to support young children who need to be educated about the future.” She became a Weight Watchers spokesperson in 1997 at age 38 and remained the face of the program for 11 years.
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When "Hot in Cleveland" star Valerie Bertinelli dropped 40 pounds on the Jenny Craig program a few years ago, the newly svelte actress posed in a revealing bikini. That endorsement relationship has since ended, but many Americans continue to associate her with the program. “I’m thrilled to empower others to make a positive change in their lives,” said Bertinelli in Oct. 2012. Her own mom, Nancy, lost 54 pounds on Jenny Craig after seeing her daughter's progress and later underwent an emergency heart valve replacement; the successful surgery benefitted from the weight loss, said cardiologists.
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She earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has had hit films and TV shows. She's also had yo-yo dieting dramas, as any fan of "Fat Actress" or "Dancing with the Stars" (or grocery store tabloid) knows well. Kirstie Alley, 63, had a gig as a Jenny Craig spokesperson for a few years, but by 2008 she'd regained most (if not more) of the lost weight. She has since embarked on a serious weight loss effort and has dropped 100 pounds through hard work, diet and exercise, she claimed: "Thank u for all your SWEET comments," she tweeted. "NO surgery, NO flippin lasers, NO barfing, NO starving... [Just] my products, organic food, dance."
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The versatile actor, a.k.a. George Constanza on "Seinfeld," lost 30 pounds in 2010 on Jenny Craig after lugging around extra weight for years. "With every diet I ever tried, the first 10 pounds were always easy," he said at the time. "Then they would come right back. Jenny Craig's program is the first that helped me reach my goal." He also said, "I was fat. Now I'm thin." And: "When I turned 50 [in Sept. 2009], my teenage son asked me if I was going to be around when he turned 50 someday. That question helped me realize that if I didn't make significant changes, I might not be." Jenny Craig, by the way, no longer uses celebrity endorsers.
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Two years ago pop superstar Janet Jackson, who had tried maintaining a healthy weight for most of her long career, followed in the footsteps of tons of other celebrity endorsers by signing on as a Nutrisystem spokesperson for its reformulated "SUCCESS" program of portion-controlled low-glycemic meals. The agreement meant a co-promotion for her book, True You. Jackson, now 47, said at the time she "couldn't do it alone" and that "denying myself the foods I love never worked for me... There are millions of women like me who want to be successful but don't have the tools to do it. I hope I help inspire them."
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The singer, producer and former judge on "American Idol" famously dropped about 70 pounds of her post-pregnancy weight on the Jenny Craig program. "I used to be able to slim down just by exercising more, but that’s changed. Since having [her twins], I realize that 90 percent of losing weight is my diet,” she told Shape a couple of years ago. The Long Island native, 43, is also a philanthropist and one of the top-selling female artists of all time. “I’m proud of how hard I worked to get my body back," she told Us Magazine. "I had to do this for me.”