STAR POWER

‘The View’ Star Says 160-Lb. Weight Loss Saved Her Life

The talk show icon went from a size 26 to a size 6.

Star Jones says losing more than 160 pounds over two decades ago didn’t just change her body—it allowed her to have the life she has now.

The attorney and former View co-host, 64, reflected on the lasting impact of her 2003 gastric bypass surgery during a guest appearance on the daytime talk show this week, saying she believes she would be dead without it.

“I was 307 pounds at my heaviest sitting at this table,” Jones said. “I saved my own life.”

Jones said the surgery ultimately made it possible for her to survive the major heart operation she needed seven years later.

“I would not have been able to have open heart surgery,” she said. “They wouldn’t have put me on the table to crack my chest and take my heart out of my body at 300 pounds. I would be dead.”

She added that the life she has now—including her husband and son—might never have happened without the decision she made at 41.

“I would not have a husband that I love. I would not have a son. I would not have had any part of the life,” she said.

Jones has spoken openly in recent years about the weight-loss surgery she once kept private.

In a 2012 interview with Today, she admitted that she initially stayed quiet because she feared she would fail.

“I’m not sure I thought I would be successful at it, to be honest with you,” she told Matt Lauer. “I thought I’d gain the weight back.”

As the pounds came off, speculation grew over how Jones was losing weight so quickly. She still declined to discuss the surgery publicly.

“I was depressed and confused and not really ready,” she told Lauer. “And I don’t apologize for it.”

In another 2012 interview alongside Rosie O’Donnell, Jones said a close friend named Janet confronted her about her health, invoking the death of singer Luther Vandross.

“I can’t come into this house three days after you’ve had a stroke and died by yourself, like Luther,” Jones recalled her friend telling her.

At the time of her surgery, Jones weighed more than 300 pounds and said she struggled to climb stairs or walk through an airport without stopping to catch her breath.

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“My greatest fear was that I would die in my apartment alone from a stroke or a heart attack—too big to get to the phone,” she said in 2012.

Jones ultimately dropped from a size 26 to a size 6, changed her diet, and began exercising regularly.

In 2010, she began experiencing shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and lightheadedness. She was later diagnosed with heart disease and underwent surgery to repair her aortic valve and drain fluid around her heart.

The American Heart Association says excess weight increases women’s risk of heart disease and stroke by at least 32 percent.

Jones, a longtime American Heart Association volunteer, revisited that history on The View: Behind the Table podcast, telling Joy Behar she does not judge people who use GLP-1 medications.

“Some of the people who were harshest on me are the ones that talk about how the new weight loss drugs have saved their life,” Jones said.

She said she exercised throughout her own weight loss and changed her diet, but stressed that the method matters less than taking action.

“I think folks got to do what they got to do,” Jones said. “You’re gonna save your own life.”

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Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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