Kathy Bates, 76, talks weight loss as she admits to shedding 100lbs amid Ozempic speculation from fans

Kathy Bates revealed she lost 100 pounds in six years, while fans claim she was taking Ozempic.

The Misery star, 76 — who recently announced she’s retiring from acting following her role in CBS’s Matlock reboot — discussed her weight loss journey during an interview with Variety published on Wednesday.

Speaking to the media, she spoke highly of her role in Matlock and explained that she was able to keep up with her filming schedule by prioritising her health and losing weight.

“It’s helped me tremendously that I’ve lost 100 pounds in the last six or seven years,” Bates said. “I don’t think I’ve been that lean since I was in college.”

Kathy stated that she weighed the most in 2011, when she starred in the NBC series Harry’s Law. She admitted, “I had to sit down every moment I could.”

“It was hard for me to walk. I’m ashamed that I let myself get so out of shape, but now I have so much energy.”

Some fans are speculating that Bates owes her weight loss to Ozempic. One recently took to X and wrote, “Did they get Kathy Bates on Ozempic???? Damn.”

Another social media user typed: ‘Kathy Bates is now on Ozempic too… we are losing our fat empresses…’

Bates has previously spoken openly about her weight loss, and in 2019 she spoke to Extra about the inspiration behind putting her health first.

“I haven’t been this healthy in years and I’m so grateful for it. It’s a miracle,” she told the outlet at the time after losing 60 pounds.

The Titanic actress explained: ‘I had diabetes, it runs in my family, and I really didn’t want to continue living with it.’

Kathy said she learned, “After you eat for 20-30 minutes, you involuntarily hear a sigh.”

“It’s a communication between the stomach and the brain telling you that you’ve had enough… and what I found is that if you listen to that sigh and push your plate away for five minutes, you realize that you’re full and you don’t need to eat anymore.”

The star was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003. After her diagnosis in 2012, she battled breast cancer.

She underwent a double mastectomy, but ‘later developed a condition called lymphedema.’

Lymphedema is caused by “tissue swelling caused by a buildup of protein-rich fluid that is normally drained from the body via the lymphatic system,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

During a recent interview with The New York Times Earlier this month, Bates announced that she is ready to retire after her new CBS series Matlock concludes.

Kathy plays Madeline Matlock in a gender-reversed reboot of the original Matlock series that ran from 1986 to 1995 starring Andy Griffith.

The actress has won an Oscar, two Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globes in her illustrious career.

Bates told the media that she is ready to call it a day… which is something she had actually been planning to do before Matlock came on the scene.

She said she had seriously considered retiring last year (she wouldn’t say which film) before she got the script for Matlock.

“It’s going to be my life. Sometimes I get jealous that I have this talent. Because I can’t stop it and I just want my life,” she said.

Weeks after she told her agents she wanted to retire, they sent her the script for the pilot of Matlock. Surprisingly, she felt an immediate connection to the character, Madeline Matlock.

She said the injustices she faced early in her career mirror the situation of her title character.

“Everything I’ve prayed for, everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve worked my way up to, now all of a sudden I can use it. And it’s exhausting,” she said.

“This is my last dance,” Bates insists of her retirement after Matlock, which CBS had placed an 18-episode order for ahead of its Sept. 22 premiere.

Bates added that she felt connected to the character because they both express their grief in their work.

“Maybe that’s why I was attracted to it,” Bates admitted in the interview.

Her co-star Skye P. Marshall, who also plays a lawyer on the series, praised her work ethic.

“When she gets a script and reads it, you see her challenging the directors and the writers in a healthy way,” Marshall said.

“She is a beautiful warrior who is so intuitive and intelligent and not willing to tolerate injustice, even to others,” she added.

Although the actress didn’t necessarily see herself this way, the interviewer said she started crying toward the end of the interview.

“I have no right. I see the state of the world, and here I am in a fancy restaurant in a fancy city with a fancy career, going home to a fancy house, and what right do I have to cry?” Bates said.

And when she recently spoke with Variety, she also briefly discussed whether she has plans to retire.

“My friends say I’ll probably die in my chair on stage like Molière, because it’s really a life force for me,” Kathy said.