Brett Cooper — The Sickly Victorian Child Look Isn't Healthy | Episode 154

You guys, I have almost sat down to do this episode so many times over the last few months because every single time a celebrity who used to be, you know, this champion for body positivity hits a red carpet showing off their new gaunt shoulder bones or collar bones, I debate talking about this about the fact that that proves that the entire body positivity movement was a scam. But also, I've been conflicted because I haven't really felt like ripping into people who were taking steps to try and make their life better, even if they were using Ozempic because a lot of people who end up being the center of those stories are people that were very unhealthily overweight and who needed to make changes in their life and objectively, whether or not you're using drugs, that is a good thing.

But this past weekend, guys, after the Oscars red carpet, I decided that it was time. We must talk about this. Specifically, we must talk about the new beauty standards in Hollywood that are being fueled by Ozempic because when we were promoting health, when we were fighting back against the body positivity movement, we did not mean sickly, plague-ridden Victorian child. That was not our idea of healthy. And yet, that is how every person in Hollywood is starting to look, as you can see on screen right here.

And now, listen, we did talk about this 2 days ago, but the Oscars did have their best year ever in terms of social media posting, social media buzz, and I would argue that in large part, that is because of how the internet was freaking out over everyone's weight. Now, before we dive into this, make sure that you like this video, subscribe to the channel if you've not already, and if you want to stay up-to-date on every single upload of the Red Cooper Show, make sure to ring that notification bell.

Also, if you want behind-the-scenes content from the birthing of cows to starting our garden this year to taking my husband to Costco for the first time, everything like that, travel vlogs, head on over to cooperconfidential.com. That is our subscriber-only platform for BTS content. We built it from the ground up and I love producing all of that content for you guys. All right, now, diving into the story, you just need to listen to some of these comments from the Oscars.

Okay, so one person said, "Okay, actually, everyone is so skinny, for real. Like, the arms, what is happening over there?" Another person said, "Everyone got such bony shoulders now." Another person said, "Her body, her choice, her bones on display." Yeah, I'm not kidding. The shoulder bones. It's like they're going to kill people. They're so sharp. Another person said, "When they take starving artist to literally."

Exactly. And obviously, everyone online is pointing to one thing, one drug, I should say. Now, first of all, disclaimer alert, I am not a doctor. I am not here to talk about or debate whether Ozempic is healthy or good for you. What I am here to talk about today is unhealthy body standards and body trends because at the end of the day, that is what all of this comes down to. And now, to be fair, there are a lot of celebrities out there who have had incredible body transformations.

Some of them credit GLP-1s, some of them don't. And Ozempic is just a form of a GLP-1. There's a bunch of different name brand drugs. The most common one is Ozempic, but they are all called GLP-1s. For example, Oprah said that she used a weight loss drug, and obviously, we talked about that on the show last year, I think, because after years of her saying Weight Watchers would solve everything and she could lose weight and still be eating bread, she came out and she was like, "Actually, I couldn't."

And so now, Weight Watchers is actually offering you drugs. So, she's been very open about that. Meghan Trainor used Monjaro, I think that that's how you pronounce it. Jelly Roll, to his credit, had a huge transformation, but he did not use Ozempic. He's been very open about that. His wife had awful side effects when she tried it, so he was worried about that. So, he's in it all on his own accord. Lizzo, who also looks so much healthier now, said that she tried using it, but stopped soon after and focused on just eating right and working out.

Barbie Ferreira, who's an actress from Euphoria, also has had an amazing transformation. She looks fantastic. She has not confirmed whether she's used it or not, but she was like, "Standing at the Oscars, she was wearing this like custom blue dress that was made by Gap, actually. It was amazing and everyone like she walked out and people were like, "Oh my god, how is this you?" cuz she looked so amazing. And whether or not these specific individuals use Ozempic or GLP-1s or not, they look good.

All of the people that I mentioned here, they look normal and healthy. They have lost an appropriate amount of weight. They look like they are all thriving. And if they did use the Ozempic or a GLP-1, they look sturdy and like they eat a sandwich every once in a while. And if they did use Ozempic, I think it was probably for the right reasons because with all of these individuals, there was weight that needed to be lost.

There were, I'm sure, underlying health issues there. They got those under control. They're doing BETTER NOW. BUT LIKE with all things in our society that can be used for good or maybe start out for good, some people take it too far and some people take advantage of it. Now, luckily, you don't have to worry about being taken advantage of at GCU. Now, some people, especially on the political right, say that higher education is outdated or irrelevant in the modern era.

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Again, that is puretalk.com/cooper and switch to a wireless company that is affordable and that shares your values. Again, puretalk.com/cooper, that is America's wireless company. All right, now getting back into the story, getting to the crux of it here. I, like everyone else on the internet, have noticed an increasing number of women who have not needed to lose weight, who were skinny enough on their own, looking as if they are now using Ozempic.

trend is now racing through Hollywood. Taking it right back to Oscar's night, just look at Judd Apatow's daughter at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. This is crazy. She did not used to look at that. AGAIN, THE SHOULDER BONES, the clavicle, it looks like it could cut somebody. And the point is, she was already skinny. And yet, she's gotten progressively skinnier, just like Demi Moore was already skinny, but obviously something has changed, as you can see here in this video.

But I don't think that you can just chalk this up to age, because it happened so quickly. Now, to really tie all of the topics together that we've been discussing this week, Laila from The Secret Wives of Mormon Wives, which we were discussing yesterday in regards to The Bachelorette, she literally just entered treatment after not being able to quit Ozempic. And guys, this girl, she is 5'7, she's only an inch shorter than me, and she is 99 lbs.

I'll tell you straight up, I weigh 135 lbs. That is not normal, that is not healthy, and she is not the only one. A huge viral story that's been going around, gosh, for like the last three or four months, I would say, is the massive transformation of Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne. And I want to be really careful and empathetic when I get into this part of the story, because obviously both of them are grieving the loss of Ozzy Osbourne, their husband, their father, but we still do have to admit that what is happening right now with their bodies is not normal.

That is not healthy. And so, this was them at the Brit Awards just a couple of weeks ago. And to put it in perspective, if you don't know who these women are, just watch this transformation. Specifically, I want you to look at what happened between 2022 and 2023. Just watch. All right. All right. All right. All right. All >> [music] >> I mean, again, that's not normal. And then also, and again, I'm being gentle here, but it didn't just start to happen back in July when Ozzy Osbourne died.

Like, this has been happening for a while. Like, you can spot the exact moment, in my opinion, like 2022, 2023, that they both started to change. And again, it has obviously gotten more drastic over the last 6 months or so, and you might say, "Okay, that's just grief." And I understand that it's okay. But Sharon herself, much like The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives girl, has admitted publicly years ago to going too far with Ozempic.

She did this all the way back in 2023. And this is what she said. in an interview with the Daily Mail November of '23, and she said, "I'm too gaunt, and I can't put any weight on. I want to because I feel I'm too skinny. I'm under 100 lbs, and I don't want to be." She explained, adding to the warning, "Be careful what you wish for. I started Ozempic last December, so that was less than a year before, and I've been off of it for a while now, but my warning is don't give it to teenagers.

It's just too easy. You can lose so much weight, and it is easy to become addicted to that, which is very dangerous." The 5'2" celebrity admitted. "I couldn't stop losing weight now, and now I've lost 42 lbs. I can't afford to lose any more." Okay, so like, just take a look at that timeline. She started it in December of 2022. She's giving this interview in November, less than a year later. She said that she stopped it a while ago, and she lost a 42 lbs that she did not need to lose in what was it, 5 months, 6 months?

And then, even though she was sounding off the alarms, now her daughter Kelly has followed suit. But unlike her mom, who seemed a little more upfront and honest about all of it, Kelly is now attacking those who comment on her weight. She is deflecting. She's saying, "Don't talk about it. You're evil. Don't do that." And again, I am sure that this is exacerbated by the death of her father, but as you saw in that long transformation video, her weight started changing around the same time as her mother's.

And it was around the time that she publicly, on their podcast actually, said that she had to change her mind about Ozempic, even though now she has never acknowledged taking it. And in my opinion, that just is a little suspect. Now, my point in bringing up all of these examples is that this is not about health. None of these people actually had weight to lose. It is all about changing beauty standards. And like I said, right now, it's as if being some waifish orphan child in the gothic novel is what's in.

And it's also not just weight. They're sucking the buccal buckle, whatever it's called, fat out of their cheeks, which only makes them look even more malnourished and gaunt. They're then injecting their cheeks and their whole face with all of this filler that just highlights the fact that there is no real plumpness anymore. Like, it's just crazy. It's snowballing and now, again, everybody just looks malnourished. Now, in a recent article, multiple stylists and beauty experts weighed in on this trend, cuz again, it is a trend.

One said, "There is a stigma now to having any weight." One stylist and former Vogue editor told Page Six, added a top Hollywood dermatologist, quote, "My female clients have been microdosing GLP-1s for a long time now. Body positivity was over the minute GLP-1s started flooding the market. It costs less to microdose, is more tolerable on your body, and you still let yourself eat." That also is just crazy to me. They're microdosing and yet the results are still so severe.

And yet, we're sitting here having this entire conversation because it is so shocking how so many of these women look. And it's all because it's a trend, because the beauty standards have changed. And this is also just so predictable because, obviously, what goes around comes around. The stick-skinny look was popular for decades. It is what spurred the body positivity movement to begin with over a decade ago. Although, I would argue that this modern look is far more anorexic than the thin and fit Victoria's Secret Angels that everybody was complaining about over a decade ago.

And apparently, nobody is taking it farther than Hollywood. Somebody commented on this point and said, "It kills me that now that Ozempic and all of that have become popular and losing a little weight is more or less within reach for those of us mortals, that celebrities are like, 'If you're all going to be skinny, then we're going to be skinny on a Somali refugee kid level.'" I mean, that's basically what it is. Now, again, like I said, trends come and go.

However, unlike buying a new top, buying a cottagecore dress, or buying a new pair of jeans and trying to catch up with what pant tightness is in right now, people are taking lasting tolls on their bodies in order to look this way. And honestly, I have to say like I think the first big example of this was the cast of Wicked. Like can we blame Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for this again? Like something happened on that set.

They weren't eating, they were mentally unwell, and while the rest of the internet was like commenting and screaming like something is wrong, help these people. Apparently, the rest of Hollywood took that as inspiration and they were like, "Man, this is great. We all need to look at that." Meanwhile, again, commenters everywhere were like, "Please stop. This is so insane." Now, obviously, the last thing we need to touch on is that all of this also shows that even though this same cohort of people spent years yelling in our faces about how actually fat is healthy and fat is beautiful and then you fitness is awful and if you tell a person to go to the gym, if you actually work out yourself, you are racist and fat phobic.

They didn't believe any of that. Literally, they did not believe a single iota of that. It was all projection. Somebody commented and said, "Ozempic has proven that none of the people preaching fat acceptance were ever content being fat. They have opted for the magic button that makes you skinny every time." the person said, "We have to admit that it's at least a little funny that Ozempic's obliteration of the body positivity movement means that fat people really thought it would be easier to rewrite all of society's concepts of beauty and health standards than to exercise and eat in moderation."

Which I've never heard a truer comment. Like what this really comes down to is that these people, they were unhappy, they were uncomfortable in their bodies, but rather than dealing with that and taking accountability for them and their bodies, they turned around and they made it everybody else's problem. They decided that they wanted to change society instead of changing themselves. And honestly, it is insane how effective they were.

Like that is wild. The social contagion was out of control. But then when an easy solution came around, when standards began to change again, everyone folded because at the end of the day, they did want to be thinner. They wanted to be skinnier. They wanted to feel better about their bodies. They wanted to be healthier and possibly more importantly, they wanted to feel validated and accepted. And I again want to give the caveat that I know that there are so many people out there who did lose weight without GLP-1s, who did it the quote-unquote hard way, who made a concerted effort to change their lives outside of beauty standard changing.

People like Jelly Roll who documented the entire process on social media. Like you could see him like pushing sleds up and down his driveway. People like Adele. I mean, she had this insane body transformation. It was way before the Ozempic craze started. She did that blood, sweat, and tears. She looks amazing. Those are the types of people that are worth looking up to because they were actually trying to change their life and change their lifestyles, not just trying to fit into a box of beauty standards.

And that right there is health. That is what is worth looking up to. Welcome back to come back to you guys. Today we're doing something very fun. We are inside. I'm not tredging through cow poop. We're going to be in the kitchen today because my mom did a very cool thing and she connected with a woman on Facebook who is selling freshly milled flour. >> [music]