Has Oprah Winfrey ever appeared in advertising for Lipomax?
Executive summary
Oprah Winfrey has not legitimately appeared in advertising for Lipomax according to the reporting provided: multiple consumer complaints and Better Business Bureau warnings describe fake or deep‑faked videos that use her likeness to sell LipoMax, and Oprah’s team has repeatedly said she does not endorse such weight‑loss pills, calling similar ads “a complete fabrication” [1] [2] [3]. The available evidence points to fraudulent advertising that appropriates her image rather than an authentic commercial endorsement.
1. The claim consumers saw: convincing videos showing Oprah pitching Lipomax
Consumers across several BBB reports described seeing online videos that directly placed Oprah Winfrey in what appeared to be interviews or infomercials praising LipoMax and a so‑called “pink salt trick,” with some ads even implying she funded the project or used the product herself; those firsthand consumer complaints say the videos appeared on social feeds and were highly convincing enough that people bought expensive shipments of the supplement [1] [4] [2]. Local reporting echoes that pattern: a Utah consumer told reporters she paid over $400 after seeing a video featuring a “fake Oprah” touting a supplement whose bottles turned out to contain mostly turmeric [5].
2. Independent warnings: BBB and local outlets flag deepfakes and scams
The Better Business Bureau compiled dozens of these reports and issued alerts noting that many of the LipoMax ads used fabricated footage and deep‑fake celebrity endorsements, and warned consumers to be cautious when searching for weight‑loss products online [2] [6]. The BBB’s summaries of consumer complaints repeatedly describe videos where Oprah appears alongside alleged doctors and makes explicit claims about the product’s results or financing, and the bureau flagged the pattern as a coordinated scam using fake celebrity endorsements [1] [2].
3. Oprah’s response and documented denials
Oprah Winfrey’s representatives have explicitly denied endorsing diet pills or gummies in similar scam contexts: her spokesperson said such ads are “a complete fabrication” and that she has nothing to do with those diet or weight‑loss products — a statement reported by CNN that relates to the same wave of fraudulent celebrity endorsements circulating online [3]. While Oprah is publicly involved with WW (formerly Weight Watchers), that legitimate association is distinct from the fraudulent LipoMax push and does not constitute an endorsement of the product in question [3].
4. Why the misattribution persisted: deepfakes, social platforms and profit motives
Reporting and the BBB note a clear incentive for scammers to fabricate celebrity endorsements: placing a recognizable public figure like Oprah in a slick video increases perceived credibility and drives impulse purchases, while the technology to create realistic fake footage has become widely available and easily deployed on social platforms and ad networks [2] [6]. These sources show that victims reported multiple variations of the same pitch—sometimes switching the product name or the on‑screen “physician”—which aligns with the behavior of fraud operations testing different sales pages and creatives to maximize conversions [4] [1].
5. Evidence limits and final verdict
Based solely on the provided reporting, there is no credible evidence that Oprah Winfrey ever legitimately appeared in or authorized advertising for LipoMax; available documentation indicates the ads were fabrications or deepfakes and that Oprah’s representatives denied any link to such products [1] [2] [3]. These sources do not prove who specifically created the fake ads or how broadly they were distributed beyond the consumer complaints and local reporting, so attribution of the scam’s operators remains outside the scope of the present reporting [4] [5].