Kelly Osbourne Isn't Alone: 4 Celebs Who Got Real About Grief Affecting Their Weight

Grieving is hard enough without having to do it in front of a judgy, loud, and opinionated public. Take the case of reality star Kelly Osbourne. In mid-2025, she lost her father, legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne, and almost immediately, she began losing weight. Yet instead of giving her space and sympathy during her weight-loss transformation, many followers accused her of using a GLP-1 like Ozempic, which she vehemently denied.

By the fall of 2026, Osbourne was ready to speak up about her weight loss that had people judging her in droves. She explained to The Sun UK that her sadness and depression had caused her to stop eating: "I was just sad. I don't wish that pain on anyone ever. And to do that in front of everyone just sucked." Continued Osbourne, "I just couldn't do anything for myself. Eating made me feel like I wanted to throw up." She added that she hadn't realized the extent of her problem until she saw pictures of herself and became alarmed. Fortunately, she soon began meeting with a therapist who's also a life coach, and she slowly regained 30 pounds of the weight she had lost.

Osbourne's story serves as a reminder that grief can impact the relationship people have with food and, like trauma and other complex emotions, affect more than just a person's psychological health. Moreover, Osbourne is far from being the only celebrity who's gotten flak — and gotten real — about how the grieving process can cause weight fluctuations.

In 2023, the late actor Hayden Panettiere learned that her younger brother had died. Right away, her body began to change by holding onto weight. "I know stress and cortisol running through your body can do that," she told People in 2024. Before long, Panettiere had put on 40 pounds. At the same time, she began experiencing symptoms of agoraphobia, which is a condition that manifests into fear about going somewhere that might cause a sensation of helplessness or feeling trapped, like a public space with a lot of people.

Eventually, Panettiere began working with a trainer who allowed her to slowly heal through conversation and activity. "We'd take these long, beautiful walks where we could vent, and it would be this therapy session," explained Panettiere. Until her death in 2026, Panettiere had been rebuilding her career, while openly talking about some of her career and health struggles.

Findings from a 2014 study in PLoS One partially support Panettiere's description of suddenly gaining weight after the death of a relative. The study examined the body mass index (BMI) of 5,142 people in Sweden before and after losing a spouse, parent, or sibling. Though not dramatically conclusive, the results showed a potential connection between losing a loved one and a higher BMI, with the highest changes after losing a parent.

After the unexpected death of her mother in 2024, actor Nicole Kidman began to look thinner. At the beginning of the year, it already seemed as though she had lost weight, which made her subsequent weight loss even more noticeable. Kidman's further weight loss may well have been due to losing her mom. According to Radar Online, Kidman acknowledged her grief while at the Venice Film Festival that year. "I wish my mama was here," she reportedly said while being photographed for the event, adding, "It's a hard road. I'm hanging in there."

Two years later, Kidman has channeled her heartbreak into a positive new direction for her career. In April 2026, she told the San Francisco Chronicle that she plans to train as a death doula, or someone who helps a dying person move through the death stages with compassion, comfort, and dignity. "I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care," she explained.

When actor Ashley Judd's mother died in 2022, the actor added some weight to her frame while moving through the stages of grief. However, she wasn't about to play into the taunting she assumed she was receiving on social media. "I've put on some weight and I'm sure people are talking about it, but I don't pay any attention to it because I know it's a temporary condition and the weight will come off when it's supposed to," she said at a public event (via The Hollywood Reporter).

Judd showed true grit by snapping at any would-be critics, but at the same time, she offered a philosophical understanding of why she would be judged. "You try being a once ultra-fit woman who's 54 and put on some weight," Judd mused, noting that the rather judgmental chatter surrounding this tends to come from men and women alike.

By 2025, Judd was able to take her "like it or lump it" attitude a step further. In an Instagram reel, she reveled in a one-piece swimsuit by the sea. Her comment to the video was as refreshing as the sunny setting: "WE DON'T CARE CLUB."

Actor Kate Beckinsale called 2025 "really, really hard" in a touching now-deleted Instagram post (via Parade) created as a response to all the people who kept saying she was too thin in all her photos, particularly the ones after her mother died of cancer. After explaining how many people she had lost in her life and the burden it placed on her, she concluded in her heartfelt and heart-wrenching post, "And I will say, it doesn't make you feel very hungry." Beckinsale's words affected many commenters who poured their support into her feed.

Still, not all of Beckinsale's followers showered her with affection when she uploaded the honest video, which is why she removed all her posts by late 2026. That said, before she ultimately scrubbed her account, Beckinsale pushed back against some of the nasty comments she received — such as one particularly rude remark ordering her to gain weight, to which she responded, "I think people might be broken."