Star Jones admits to weight loss surgery
By Kimberley Dadds
Star Jones Reynolds has admitted to undertaking gastric bypass surgery in order to lose her dramatic amount of weight, following years of speculation.
The former host of US talk show The View has lost 11 and a half stone (73 kg) over the last four years and admitted she was "intentionally evasive" about admitting to surgery.
She wrote in Glamour magazine the reasons for keeping quiet, saying: "I was scared of what people might think of me. I was afraid to be vulnerable."
At her heaviest she weighed nearly 22 stone (139 kg) as a result of her insecurities and was urged by a friend to undergo surgery in 2003.
But she now feels comfortable talking about her weight loss and admitted: "I was hell-bent on keeping the specifics of my weight loss private in an effort to maintain control. Yet talking about my weight loss finally gave me the control I'd hungered for."
Reynolds left The View last year after rumours she clashed with executive producer Barbara Walters.