Stephen Fry 'threw up five times a day' while using Ozempic

Stephen Fry has revealed he stopped using Ozempic to lose weight because it caused him to vomit up to five times a day.

The British comedian was an "early adopter" of the medication, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes, several years ago. While he was thrilled with the results at first, he had to give up the weekly injection due to the side effects.

"I happened to be in America, and I'd read about it, and I asked my doctor in America, my physician as they like to call them, and he said, 'I think I can get you some,'" Fry, 66, said on Ruthie's Table 4 podcast. "He tried me on it, and the first week or so, I was thinking, 'This is astonishing. Not only do I not want to eat, I don't want any alcohol of any kind. This is going to be brilliant.'

"Then I started feeling sick, and I started getting sicker and sicker and sicker. I was literally throwing up four, five times a day and I thought, 'I can't do this.' So that's it."

According to the official Ozempic website, side effects can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation and stomach pain.

The Blackadder actor lost five stone (31.7 kilograms) across 2018 and 2019.

During an appearance on BBC Breakfast in 2019, Fry said he'd gone on a health kick after recovering from an operation to treat prostate cancer. At the time, he attributed his trimmer figure to "lots of walking".