James Corden's lookalike sister Ruth reveals 9st weight loss on Ozempic - after Gavin and Stacey star admitted the drug 'didn't work' for him
James Corden admitted he ditched Ozempic last year after it failed to curb his eating habits - but his lookalike sister, Ruth, appears to be enjoying much more success.
She stunned friends and family this week with her dramatic nine-stone weight loss from the drug - and claims the transformation has also changed her personality.
The civil servant and podcaster, 43, shared before-and-after images to Instagram on Wednesday, saying that the woman she used to be felt forced to be ‘dazzling, loud, magnetic, unforgettable’ simply to survive as the 'fat' person in the room.
Sharing a striking side-by-side showing her slimmer physique on the right, Ruth wrote: ‘The girl on the left learned to walk into every room like she had to be dazzling, loud, magnetic, unforgettable, because being fat taught her that if she didn’t take control of the space, the space would take control of her.’
She continued: ‘She smiled. She entertained. She insisted she was “fine”. All the while, she was exhausted from performing just to feel safe.’
James Corden's lookalike sister Ruth has revealed her 9st weight loss after using Ozempic on Instagram this week - after Gavin and Stacey star admitted the drug 'didn't work' for him
Ruth shared this caption alongside her weight loss picture
By contrast, Ruth said the woman she is today - pictured wearing a sparkling gold top and tailored trousers - is ‘softer, quieter, more herself’.
‘The girl on the right walks in as she is,’ she wrote. ‘And this kind of truth is the bravest thing I’ve ever worn, terrifying in its exposure, freeing in its weightlessness.’
Gavin and Stacey star James, 47 - with whom Ruth shares sister Ange, 49 - has spoken openly about his own weight issues over the years.
The Late Late Show star joined WW (formerly Weight Watchers) in 2021 and said the programme helped him shed over two stone. He later revealed he had also tried Ozempic, admitting last year that he gave the drug a go but did not stay on it.
‘I tried Ozempic, and it didn’t really do anything for me,' James said. 'I realised my issues around eating were more emotional. It wasn’t really hunger. It was what I was feeling.’
Ruth - who lives in Buckinghamshire with husband Matthew - has spent the last year on Ozempic under the care of Harley Street's Dr Sophia Khalique, crediting the appetite-suppressing medication with helping her break lifelong cycles of emotional eating.
She recently told The Worst Girl Gang Ever podcast that she has lost nine stone as she opened up about infertility struggles with husband Matthew and described how years of trauma, mental health battles and past drug misuse had taken a toll on their marriage.
Gavin and Stacey star James, 47 (pictured together) - with whom Ruth shares sister Ange, 49 - has spoken openly about his own weight issues over the years
Ruth - who lives in Buckinghamshire with husband Matthew - has spent the last year on Ozempic under the care of Harley Street's Dr Sophia Khalique, crediting the appetite-suppressing medication with helping her break lifelong cycles of emotional eating
She posted this caption alongside a picture of herself and Matthew
‘I go to the gym and eat very little,’ she said. ‘I lost nearly nine stone, which has really changed my life in loads of different ways. I just feel this peace that I never, ever thought I’d feel in my life.’
She added: ‘Matthew and I have battled in our marriage infertility, complex mental health and drug misuse. We have really gone on a rollercoaster.
'It’s been torturous at times. There’s been lots and lots of grief and trauma and pain for us.
‘I think it’s remarkable we’re not only still together but still really like and love each other. I’m really proud of us for what we’ve managed to navigate.’
Ruth said her mental health has ‘increased ten-fold’ thanks to her regular exercise routine, which includes high-intensity interval training, walking and yoga.
'I feel the lightest and most positive I’ve ever felt about my life and a lot of that is down to exercise,’ she said, adding that she has built ‘a really great group of gym friends’ and feels as though she is ‘coming out the other side’.
While her brother James said he stopped using the drug because it wasn’t addressing the root cause of his relationship with food, Ruth’s experience has been markedly different - with the medication forming part of a wider overhaul in therapy, fitness and self-identity.
Friends and fans flocked to praise her latest post about her weight loss.
Ex-Emmerdale star Charley Webb commented with a fire emoji, while former Hear'Say star Suzanne left a string of red hearts and raised hands emojis.
James - pictured in 2019 has been very open about his own weight loss journey
James has lost a significant amount of weight since appearing in much-loved sitcom Gavin And Stacey (pictured) but has admitted that Ozempic did not work for him
James' Gavin And Stacey co-star Ruth Jones has revealed she turned to a hypnotist to help her lose 4.5 stone (right in 2009), as she showed off her transformation (left, in September) after split from her husband
The truth behind new diet drug craze - Hollywood is hooked on it, and social media is fanning demand for the latest weight-loss 'miracle'
Over the summer I was lucky enough to be invited to a 60th birthday at which the after-dinner entertainment was a private performance by one of the UK's leading male pop stars. More eye-popping than the actual show, though, was how incredible said star looked. He was a mere shadow of his former self, prancing around the stage in a silver catsuit. His secret? Semaglutide, or Ozempic as it is branded, a new diet drug that everybody – but everybody, darling, including one of the world's most famous supermodels – is apparently taking.
Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, it is used off-label (for a purpose other than that for which it was licensed) in both the US and the UK to treat obesity. In research conducted by its billionaire manufacturer, the Danish-based pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, patients lost an average of 17 per cent of their overall body weight over 68 weeks. This compares with five to nine per cent for 'oldschool' anti-obesity drugs such as Metformin.
Only available in the UK on the NHS if you have type 2 diabetes, Ozempic can be obtained through a private doctor, and if you are willing to take it without medical supervision – not recommended by doctors (see panel) – you can get it online through various weight-loss programmes. It is sometimes taken in tablet form but more commonly as an injection.
Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, Semaglutide is used off-label. It has been branded as a new diet drug that everybody is apparently taking
Predictably, Hollywood has been aware of Ozempic for a lot longer than us – Variety magazine recently quipped that the drug deserved its own thank-you speech at the Emmys, as so many stars on the podium had obviously been taking it. Elon Musk raved about its more powerful sister drug, Wegovy, on Twitter; Kim Kardashian, it is hotly rumoured, used semaglutide to lose 16lb in order to fit into Marilyn Monroe's dress for the Met Ball. On TikTok the hashtag #ozempic has had more than 285 million views.
Thanks to the hype, there has been a surge in demand, causing shortages on both sides of the Atlantic, with a backlash against influencers and celebrities hogging supplies ahead of desperate diabetes sufferers. Predictably, Big Pharma has come up with an alternative – tirzepatide (brand name Mounjaro), manufactured by Eli Lilly – but it has yet to be approved by the US Food & Drug Administration for weight loss.
Novo Nordisk has issued a statement to say its supplies will be replenished by the end of the year, but it hasn't quelled anxiety. At least two middle-aged male friends of mine who started using it in September are getting themselves in a twist about being caught short before the holidays. As one private London GP remarked to me: 'It's like the H RT panic last spring.'
So what exactly is this drug? Semaglutide belongs to a class called GLP-1 agonists, which not only regulate blood sugar but, as was discovered about a decade ago, also mimic the gut hormones that regulate our appetites – the ones that tell the brain when we are hungry or full. There are, of course, side effects: acid reflux, nausea, exacerbation of IBS symptoms and fatigue (but much less so than in earlier GLP-1 agonists such as Saxenda), as well as pancreatitis, gallstones and, in very high doses, it has caused thyroid tumours in rats. Meanwhile, when you stop using it the effect wears off immediately and in some cases it won't work at all.
'I would describe semaglutide as an example of very smart science,' says leading consultant endocrinologist Dr Efthimia Karra from her private practice off London's Harley Street. 'But it is not a panacea for everyone. Around a fifth of users do not respond to it. This is because the human body favours weight gain, thus when you lose weight the body will do anything to revert to its highest BMI. The heavier you are the harder it is to lose weight. If a patient has made no progress in three months, I will take them off it.'
Banker's wife Laura, a native New Yorker in her mid-50s who had hovered between decades, started using it in January. 'The Paleo diet, 5:2, CBT, NLP, bootcamp, diet delivery services – I've tried them all,' she says from the family home in Hampshire, 'and I've always yo-yoed right back. After my last annual checkup I seriously contemplated giving up. Then my doctor suggested semaglutide.'
After only a month she noticed her clothes had become looser. From then on, the weight started dropping off. 'The strange thing was, I wasn't eating anything different. I just couldn't physically have seconds any more, and the idea of pudding after a full meal had lost its allure.' Three months on, she is two stone lighter ‒ though occasionally she suffers heartburn if she eats too late at night or drinks alcohol ‒ and when we spoke in autumn, she was looking forward to losing another stone by Christmas.
'There is a niggling voice that tells me it is both risky and lazy to take a drug to lose weight, and I worry that it will all pile on again if I stop taking it. But if it does, I will seriously consider taking it indefinitely.'
Private London GP Dr Martin Galy has been prescribing semaglutide for about a year to clients who cannot lose the weight they gained in menopause. He has seen it have a transformational effect, too, on much younger women who suffer polycystic ovary syndrome. 'PCOS sufferers are difficult to treat, and you can imagine how body image plays a very important part when it comes to self-esteem.'
But according to Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London, it is not a magic bullet. Commenting on a study on semaglutide published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2021, he says, 'The challenge post-weight loss is to prevent a regain in weight,' he wrote. It may prove to be useful in the short term, but 'public health measures that encourage behavioural changes such as regular physical activity and moderating dietary energy intake are still needed'.
That said, given our rising national obesity statistics and the escalation in accompanying health issues such as heart failure, cancer and obstructive sleep apnoea clogging up hospital beds, we're going to need something. Semaglutide may be the rich person's drug today, but might it be approved for more widespread use? Only time will tell.
