High Demand

Serena Williams’s Controversial Weight-Loss Confession Leads to Spike in GLP-1 Interest

Data shows the tennis star’s endorsement is already having a marked effect.

Despite the vocal backlash Serena Williams received after speaking about her journey with GLP-1s in August, it seems the 23-time Grand Slam winner’s influence is as strong as ever. In a sponsored Instagram post for telehealth company Ro, Williams, 43, told followers that she lost 31 pounds since starting GLP-1 medication eight months prior. (Williams’s husband, tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, is an investor and board member of Ro.) The reception to the announcement was not purely positive, with the poster of one popular Reddit thread on the subject confessing that they felt “devastated” upon seeing a “super athlete” in advertisements for the drug. Still, the New York Post reports new data from Zocdoc indicating the swift, real-life impact of Williams’s endorsement. The campaign was published on August 21, and within just three days, Zocdoc noted a whopping 27% increase in appointment bookings for GLP-1s. The celebrated athlete is not the first celebrity to openly discuss her experience with the medication, with data showing increases of 18% and 29% following Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg speaking about their GLP-1 experiences, respectively. In an interview with People, Williams said she was initially nervous about starting the medication, but now feels “great.”