“Everybody looks so great. When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder, ‘Is Ozempic right for me?’ ” joked Jimmy Kimmel while hosting the 95th Academy Awards. Of course, Kimmel was referencing Hollywood’s sweeping off-label use of the injectable diabetes drug — as well as similar drugs Mounjaro and Wegovy — to rapidly shed pounds by suppressing appetite and slowing digestion.
One unintended side effect of the drug (which can also cause gastrointestinal issues such as vomiting and diarrhea) is “Ozempic face” — a term coined by cosmetic dermatologist Paul Jarrod Frank to describe the gaunt look resulting from sudden volume loss, which some plastic surgeons are combatting with fat transfers (often taken from the hips or abdomen). And now doctors are seeing “Ozempic body,” where quick weight loss results in head-to-toe laxity of skin.
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“If you lose a lot of weight quickly, your skin gets saggy, everything from the face to the buttocks is deflated,” says Beverly Hills cosmetic dermatologist Simon Ourian, whose overall practice caters to clients such as Lady Gaga and the Kardashians. “If you maintain your [new, lower] weight for a year or two, a lot of times your skin tightens up on its own. But if you want immediate results [because] you are in front of the camera, there are ultrasound and radiofrequency treatments, fillers or you can go as far as getting surgery.”
Ourian tells THR exclusively that he is now offering an $8,000 monthly package that includes weekly injections of Ozempic, lab tests for advance screening and monitoring, vitamin D and B shots to counteract side effects, menu plans and personalized body-contouring treatments. In his toolbox are EmSculpt Neo (a combination of radiofrequency and electromagnetic energies) to help tighten muscles and InMode’s Morpheus8 radiofrequency microneedling technology (which has also been used to treat cellulite) with ultrasound to “iron out the body” and keep skin on the abdomen or upper arms looking taut. He also recommends wearing compression garments, such as Spanx.
Like Ourian, Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Gabriel Chiu, who counts Britney Spears as a client and is married to Bling Empire star and producer Christine Chiu, turns to energy treatments such as Morpheus8 and Ultherapy ultrasound (which start at $1,800 and $4,500, respectively) to combat sagging and wrinkles, along with chemical peels, lasers and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to improve skin texture. He warns that the recent trend of buccal fat removal — surgery to remove the fat pad in the cheek area for a slimmer, more sculpted look, done by Chrissy Teigen in 2021 — in combination with rapid weight loss from Ozempic “creates an abnormal skeletal hollow, and the solution is fat transfer.”
Beverly Hills dermatologist Ava Shamban, whose overall client list includes Angela Bassett and Molly Sims, recommends addressing loose skin on the arms (“bat wings”), knees and abdomen after rapid weight loss with a combination of skin-tightening EmSculpt Neo followed by Emtone thermal radiofrequency and volumizing injections of hyperdilute Radiesse, a tissue-stimulating filler (around $9,000 in total, depending on the amount of treatment needed).
Ourian also uses Neustem injections in the buttocks — his patients’ second-most-requested post-weight-loss plumping area after the face — known as a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift (BBL).
But the body doesn’t lose volume everywhere while on Ozempic. “Stubborn areas tend to stay a little bit stubborn, even when you’re losing weight,” says Chiu, citing the abdomen as a key area that patients point to. “They notice a little looseness and some residual fat around the belly button or the love handles, so I usually recommend liposuction to remove extra fat and then inject it to contour, followed by Renuvion, a combination of radiofrequency and plasma energy that tightens up the skin tissues. It’s almost like a mini tummy tuck.”
The most perfection-obsessed patients can end up on an endless quest: weight loss on Ozempic, followed by liposuction to trim stubborn areas, plus fillers and fat transfers to combat volume loss in other areas and energy machines to tighten skin. As Santa Monica-based plastic surgeon Steven Teitelbaum puts it, “People hoped the weight loss would fix that post-baby roll above their underwear or the double chin and realize it didn’t. The issues that have long been there come into bigger focus, and they’re so happy with their new [overall] appearance that they’re excited about doing more things.”
Teitelbaum adds: “It’s fair to say that you have a lot of people who were at a normal weight who have gone on Ozempic because it seems so easy and trendy, and [they] have this sense of, ‘You can’t be too rich or too thin.’ ” (He does not use energy devices in his practice because he feels that “they don’t work or cause problems or [deliver] barely noticeable results” that don’t justify the cost.)
Shamban cautions: “You may be excited that you can get into a zero-size outfit, but [the truth is] younger skin has more elasticity. We have better tools for tissue tightening and for stimulating some collagen, but it never looks the same. Lose some weight, but don’t go overboard. Don’t let your body dysmorphia shape you.”
A version of this story first appeared in the April 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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