Hollywood is gripped by the case of a "phantom pooper" who reportedly lost control of their bowels during a party at Gwyneth Paltrow's home in the Hamptons due to a side effect of Ozempic – the drug which has taken the world by storm thanks to its weight loss side effects.
Rumours of the embarrassing incident soon spread like wildfire, with internet sleuths working around the clock to try and uncover the mystery celebrity who fled the party in the middle of the night after making an unsightly mess in bed. Gwyneth and some of her A-list pals are now reportedly busy distancing themselves from the incident.
A source tells heat, "Everybody’s buzzing and wants to know who it was, which has caused a lot of stress and anger for Gwyneth and her friends because people are pointing fingers at them and playing this nasty guessing game. Naturally Gwyneth is horrified, for one thing she’s adamant that she’d never take Ozempic, she doesn’t need it, and she’s mortified that her party’s gotten tainted with this messy rumour.
"All of her friends are getting accused and they’re all fervently denying it and calling the whole thing a smear campaign, but the talk is not dying down. This is a town that loves to gossip so of course everyone’s trying to get to the truth about who it was, and all sorts of names are being thrown around. It’s obviously a big worry for the poor culprit who by all accounts hightailed it out in embarrassment after making a huge mess. Gwyneth is doing her best to try and shut this story down and do damage control but she’s having no luck, it’s really bumming her out because it obviously reflects badly on her to even be associated with such a stinky situation."
Although it is not suggested that Shallow Hal star Gwyneth has ever taken Ozempic, she did come under fire last year when she spoke about her diet. Speaking to Dr Will Cole on his The Art of Being Well podcast, the Oscar winner said, "I eat dinner early in the evening. I do a nice intermittent fast. I usually eat something about 12. In the morning, I'll have something that won't spike my blood sugar, so I have coffee. But I really like soup for lunch. I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days."
Adding that she tends to follow a Paleo diet for dinner, she continued, "Lots of vegetables. It's really important for me to support my detox."
Later addressing the backlash she received, Gwyneth revealed that she was living with Long COVID and had been working with Dr Cole "to deal with some chronic stuff."
She added, "This is not to say I eat this way all day, every day. And by the way, I eat far more than bone broth and vegetables. I eat full meals, and I also have a lot of days of eating whatever I want. You know, eating french fries and whatever. My baseline really has been to try to be healthy and eat foods that will really calm the system down."
Some famous faces who have admitted to taking Ozempic or similar weight-loss drugs in recent months are Sharon Osbourne, Robbie Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Elon Musk, but there is no suggestion that any celebrity named in this story was in attendance at the party.
Comedian Amy Schumer admitted to taking the drug in 2022, but had to stop taking it as she "felt so sick" and actress Rebel Wilson briefly took the drug to help maintain her 80lb weight loss, which she achieved through healthy eating and exercise.
Diarrhoea is one of the common side effects of drugs like Ozempic which contain semaglutide, which was first introduced to help tackle diabetes, with around one in 10 patients being affected. According to Diabetes UK, feeling sick and vomiting are also common side effects, with patients also at risk of worsening the diabetic eye disease retinopathy and both high and low blood sugar.
The insider continues, "When you consider how many people are taking this drug among the Hollywood in-crowd it’s actually not a huge shock that something like this has happened because diarrhoea is one of the known side-effects of Ozempic. And it’s not just Ozempic that can cause it, all these new weight loss drugs containing semaglutide come with that risk. It doesn’t happen for everyone, but around 10% or people taking them do have trouble with diarrhoea and some even get explosive diarrhoea, which is apparently what happened in the case of this poor person who humiliated themselves at Gwyneth’s and then had to pull a runner.
"What’s truly appalling is all the people in Hollywood that are on this who don’t need it in the slightest. The old saying, ‘you can never be too rich, or too thin’, is truer than ever these days among A-listers – and even people that you’d never in a million years consider overweight are taking it to get down to a size 0, they don’t seem to care about the nasty possible side-effects. Of course, almost none of them will admit to taking it publicly. And even privately most of them are very secretive, because there’s something of a stigma, that’s part of the reason everyone’s so fascinated by this trouble at Gwyneth’s. Figuring out who and who isn’t on Ozempic is already a new favoirite pastime in elite circles, so you can just imagine how much glee people are taking in this whole story about Gwyneth’s place. People have taken to calling it poop-gate, like it’s some sort of big whodunnit.
"Gwyneth is telling everyone who asks that the whole thing never happened, she's so annoyed that people are giving it so much attention. She’s convinced someone is purposely trying to cause trouble for her out of jealousy and is pretty bothered because she takes her reputation very seriously. But unfortunately for her this gossip has spread around town like wildfire and figuring out who had the accident in bed has become something of a summer obsession in the Hamptons and back in Hollywood, too."