Former “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Lauren Manzo eviscerated a body shamer who called her recent weight loss “sad.”
After a slimmed-down Manzo shared a TikTok video last week about not having an appetite while battling a sinus infection, a ruthless troll commented on the post, “Oh crap I didn’t know who this was. Sad…”
The daughter of “RHONJ” OG Caroline Manzo was quick to respond with a follow-up video in which she said, “What’s sad? Like, is it sad that I’m finally at a healthy weight? I’m just confused.”
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While eating a sandwich, Lauren, 35, said she was “so sick of these comments” that made “no sense” to her.
“I’m 5 foot, 3 inches and 115 pounds. The only thing I need to do to make myself healthier is build muscle,” she added before joking, “which I admit I’m too lazy to do.”
Lauren, who shared in her previous video that she had lost more weight while recovering from the sinus infection, said that no one would be questioning her current body if she had always been that size.
“I don’t look sick. I even gained a couple pounds, and as long as I feel good, I’m OK,” she said. “I’m fine. This isn’t sad. I just ate a ciabatta sandwich with a bunch of deli meat on it, a load of mayonnaise and Fritos. I’m fine.”
Lauren has been open with her weight loss struggles for years and discussed her health journey on the Bravo reality show as well as in candid interviews.
She told Us Weekly in 2012 that it was “hard” watching herself on TV because she felt like the camera added “800 pounds.” She also admitted to getting lap band surgery to help her lose weight.
Lauren’s mom later revealed that the lap band had to be removed in an emergency procedure because her daughter’s stomach was “all twisted.”
“Then she goes and gets the sleeve, which I was so against because she’s got half a stomach now. … I have never seen somebody work so hard to try and be healthy than this kid right here,” Caroline, 62, said on Pvnew’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast in May 2023.
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After years of intense dieting and exercise routines not showing results, Lauren was finally able to drop 30 pounds by using the diabetes drug Mounjaro.
“I have been considered morbidly obese,” she said on our podcast.
“I do think that people shouldn’t abuse [medications like Ozempic]. I think it’s being abused because I see people, ‘Housewives,’ that are posting, and you literally see their ribs, and it’s sad because you were already skinny.”
Lauren said her mental health took a toll at one point when she weighed 280 pounds, adding that she suffered from anxiety, depression and high blood pressure.
“I get it, people don’t like it, people don’t applaud it … but it’s a shot in your stomach once a week; it’s the same as Ozempic,” she said.
“You guys have seen me struggle with this since I’m 20 years old, and it’s been really hard for me, and I’ve lost a lot of weight from being on that whole ‘Ozempic’ thing.”
The “Manzo’d with Children” alum is currently going through a divorce from her husband of eight years, Vito Scalia.
“We continue to move forward with love and respect for each other, and we will always be a family,” she shared on TikTok last October, noting that their priority moving forward is to co-parent their 7-year-old daughter, Marchesa.
