Shonda Rhimes on Her Drastic Weight Loss: “After I Lost Weight, I Discovered That People Found Me Valuable”

Weight loss wasn’t easy for Shonda Rhimes, so she doesn’t like to talk about it.

The Grey’s Anatomy creator recently shed an impressive 150 pounds, so many fans are wondering how exactly did she lose the weight. Turns out to Shonda, it’s not about how she lost it, but about how things have been for her since.

Shonda in 2012 (left) and in 2017 (right).

“Women I barely knew gushed. And I mean GUSHED. Like I was holding a new baby gushed. Only there was no new baby. It was just me. In a dress. With makeup on and my hair, all did, yes. But…. still the same me,” she wrote in her Shondaland newsletter, accroding to Us Weekly. “And men? They spoke to me. THEY SPOKE TO ME. Like stood still and had long conversations with me about things. It was disconcerting.”

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“After I lost weight, I discovered that people found me valuable. Worthy of conversation. A person one could look at. A person one could compliment. A person one could admire. A person,” Shonda, 47, continued. “You heard me. I discovered that NOW people saw me as a PERSON. What the hell did they see me as before? How invisible was I to them then? How hard did they work to avoid me? What words did they use to describe me? What value did they put on my presence at a party, a lunch, a discussion?”

But Shonda didn’t get in shape to get everyone else’s approval, she pursued it for herself. “I did not do it because I thought I would become beautiful like in the movies. I did it because I could not walk up a short flight up stairs without stopping to take a break and wiping sweat from my brow,” she wrote. “Losing weight is not a topic I like discussing. Why? Because there is nothing fun or interesting or great about it. I hated losing weight. I hated every single second of it. And I hate every single second of maintaining my weight, too.”

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At the end of the day, Shonda has taken one lesson away from her weight loss journey: “Being thinner doesn’t make you a different person. It just makes you thinner.”

Click through the gallery below to see stars who’ve undergone a drastic weight loss!