Andy Richter Says the Combo of Zepbound and DWTS Helped Him Achieve a ‘Physical Transformation’

Andy Richter opened up about his ongoing weight-loss struggle, sharing that he turned to a GLP-1 medication to help him lose weight while competing on Dancing with the Stars.

“In a previous time I might have said, ‘Well, this show has been also a physical transformation for me because of the exercise and I’ve lost weight.’ And also … thank you, Zepbound. Zepbound helped a lot,” Richter, 59, told Julianne Hough during a Nov. 12 appearance on The Morning After (Show).

The late-night icon said “I’m never going to … be cagey about that because I think it’s silly to.”

Richter — who previously shared that he’s wanted to take a GLP-1 medication but they were “too expensive” and not covered by insurance — went on to share, “I don’t have any qualms about using science to help me over something.”

He likened the use of GLP-1 medications to SSRIs and other pharmaceutical drugs for mental health: “It’s the same when I started taking anti-depressants back in the late ’80s, I had friends that were like … [saying], ‘It’s going to change you’ and all this stuff. And the way that people talk about these weight-loss drugs, it’s the same thing.”

The Three Questions with Andy Richter host continued: “Look, this is obviously a problem for people. Let them take a medicine that helps them get past it.”

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He went on to share that Dancing with the Stars has been “physically transformative” and he’s inspired to continue with his fitness journey: “I may have at another time gone through something like this and kind of been like, ‘Oh, that was good for me. I’m going to really stick to sort of a regimen of exercise and staying active.’ ” But, he admitted that, in the back of his head, he knew he wouldn’t continue. “I say it now and I f—ing mean it.” 

“Now it’s like, when this show is done, knees willing, I’m back in the gym.” Richter said he is now testing his endurance. Up to this point, “I haven’t needed to do anything but dance … I’m curious as to, like, when I get back on an elliptical, like how long I can go and how much higher I can do the resistance and all this stuff.”

He shared that when the offer to join Dancing with the Stars came, “I was still in a rut in many many ways, especially physically,” saying that he was “curmudgeonly” about cardio and “my physical activity was limited to gardening and walking dogs and being jumped on by a 3-year-old,” he said, a reference to his wife Jennifer Herrera’s daughter Cornelia, whom he adopted.

“So I said yes to it, immediately,” Richter said. “I knew I had to.”