Star's Weighty Confession

Star Jones Reynolds has shed plenty of pounds from her figure. Now, she's working on getting the weight off her shoulders.

Just in time to promote her upcoming new gig as a Court TV pundit, the former View cohost has penned a first-person essay for Glamour magazine, in which she finally confesses that it was  gastric-bypass surgery, not just rice cakes and daily Pilates sessions, that made her lose more than 160 pounds in three years.

"I admit that when asked about my obvious weight loss over the past four years, I was intentionally evasive," she wrote. "Lying was never an option for me, so I called it a 'medical intervention,' which was true, but it was really a pathetic attempt to tell only the truth I could handle at the time."

In the essay, which Reynolds describes as "the toughest document of my life," the TV fixture told readers that, "to get all Freudian on you," she blamed her ballooning weight on both her parents and the pundits who criticized her after she was hired in 2000 for Barbara Walters' then nascent chat show.

"I was so angry: How had I allowed myself to get to 307 pounds?" she wrote. "I could clearly remember the days when I'd considered myself fly and curvaceous. Funny—or sad—how we 'thick' girls can justify being excessively overweight."

While Reynolds said that both her exercise-free, calorie-laden childhood and her adult proclivity for using Double Whoppers to "compensate for my insecurities" were partly to blame for her expanding physique, the 45-year-old celebrity said her weight did not get out of control until the months following her 40th birthday in 2002, when she put on 75 pounds in just 17 months.

"I used to take pride in my figure, but that was when I was legitimately a full-figured woman," she wrote. "I'd gradually gone from full-figured to morbidly obese."

The moment she knew something had to be done about her weight was when a friend finally confronted her—and prompted the "medical intervention" Reynolds frequently cited in her latter days at the View as the reason for her dramatic weight loss.

"She knew my weight was a subject no one dared mention, but she didn't care—she loved me too much, she said, to allow me to continue killing myself. While it was easy to deny the little voice inside my head, I found it impossible to deny my friend's."

On Aug. 19, 2003, Reynolds opted to do something about it and underwent the surgery she has been systematically downplaying for the past four years

As for why Reynolds didn't speak out sooner about her scalpel-assisted diet plan, she claims that "I never thought I'd have to explain it."

"First, I didn't know if the surgery would work," she wrote, citing her aversion to exercise and a healthy diet. "I actually thought I could say, 'None of your business,' and people would say, 'OK, she wants to remain private.'

"Everything about me was already so public (mostly my own doing—talk about dumb!), so of course everyone wanted to know what I had done. I was also terrified someone would have a tragic result after emulating me without making an informed decision with her doctor. But the complete truth is, I was scared of what people might think of me. I was afraid to be vulnerable and ashamed at not being able to get myself under control without this procedure."

There were some people she was open with about her surgery, however. On their second date, she informed now hubby Al Reynolds, who encouraged her to go public with the info. In 2005, she began psychological therapy, which led her to be able to share her story.

"After I left The View, many women told me they felt empowered by my honesty over having been fired—but wished I was willing to be as honest about my weight loss. They were right: Gastric-bypass surgery saved my life, and though I still believe wholeheartedly that health decisions are private and should remain between a doctor and his patient, keeping this decision private started to feel hypocritical and cumbersome.

"I'm not saying that in order to be happy, women need to be a certain size, but I am saying that we should all strive to be healthy."

The issue of Glamour hits newsstands Aug. 7.