On August 11, Jenna Ortega sat down for an interview to discuss becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest young stars, working with Tim Burton, lying her way through childhood auditions, and the overnight explosion of Wednesday.
Instead, much of the conversation online quickly shifted to her physique.
“The next Ariana Grande,” one person wrote as screenshots of the interview quickly went viral on X.
Highlights
- Jenna Ortega’s latest interview drew attention to her physique, with some fans comparing her appearance to Ariana Grande.
- Ortega recalled that as a child actor she sometimes went entire days without eating or drinking because she was afraid of inconveniencing people on set.
- The reaction comes as Hollywood faces renewed criticism over increasingly thin celebrity physiques while GLP-1 weight-loss treatments become more accessible.
“I’m genuinely worried about what’s happening with that girl, Ortega,” they wrote. “People? Where are this girl’s parents? I hope she’s taking care of herself.”
“Yeah, I was shocked too,” another replied. “The situation is getting worrying.”
Jenna Ortega’s physique in her newest interview caused alarm among her fanbase
GLP-1 weight-loss medications have transformed obesity treatment and become increasingly accessible, with British regulators approving another daily pill only one day before Ortega’s interview was released.
The result has been an uncomfortable collision between legitimate concern over changing beauty standards and the same relentless scrutiny of women’s bodies that celebrities have spent years asking audiences to stop.
While Ortega has never addressed having taken or planning to take GLP-1, discussion of her physique hijacked comment sections about her Esquire appearance.
The actress spent the Esquire interview retracing a career that went from Disney Channel projects to horror films and eventually Wednesday, the Netflix phenomenon that changed her life almost immediately.
She remembered realizing just how quickly the series had become enormous during Thanksgiving, shortly after its 2022 release.
“It felt like there was an earthquake happening in the building,” Ortega said, recalling how people were passing out when she attended Brazil’s Comic-Con.
“It just was not normal.”
The sudden fame was worlds away from the career she had imagined as a seven-year-old telling her parents she wanted to act.
“They laughed at me,” Ortega said.
Her childhood comments took on a different meaning after viewers focused on her weight
One moment from the interview became particularly striking in light of the concern spreading online.
Asked about mistakes she made on her earliest sets, Ortega initially joked that she could not remember making any.
As a child, she explained, she was so grateful to have work that she became determined never to inconvenience the adults around her.
“I wasn’t asking for a sip of water,” she said. “I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”
Looking back, Ortega recognized the problem.
“Maybe that was my mistake, I was not actually looking after myself.”
Asked whether she wanted to dispel stereotypes about former child stars, Ortega replied, “Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true?”
“And do with that what you will.”
As Ortega recounted the most pivotal moments of her career, fans compared her to Ariana Grande
None of those stories prevented Ortega’s appearance from becoming a separate conversation.
The comparisons to Ariana Grande were especially revealing.
Grande has spent years dealing with public commentary about her body and previously warned people against assuming they know somebody’s health from their appearance.
In 2023, she said the older body people frequently compared her current appearance against had actually represented an unhealthy period in her life.
The discussion intensified again in 2026, with Grande’s appearance during promotion for her Petal era generating another wave of speculation.
Yet Grande has increasingly become a symbol within a broader argument over extreme thinness, social media, celebrity culture, and the retreat of the body-positivity movement.
Now some fans are attempting to place Ortega inside the same narrative.
While neither Ortega nor Grande have publicly disclosed having eating disorders, fans nevertheless believe they are victims of an industry-wide push for thinner physiques.
“Hollywood is back to demanding the skin-and-bones aesthetic,” a viewer said. “And f**k, we'd come so far.”
GLP-1 medications in pill form have now been approved for sale in the UK
The anxiety around celebrity bodies has grown alongside another major development: the rapid expansion of GLP-1 medications.
Compounds such as semaglutide and tirzepatide were developed within diabetes and metabolic medicine before becoming enormously popular tools for weight management.
British regulators estimated that about 1.6 million adults in England, Wales, and Scotland used GLP-1 compounds for weight loss between early 2024 and early 2025.
Their reach is now expanding beyond injections.
On June 11, 2026, the UK became the first country to authorize a tablet form of semaglutide specifically for weight management.
Then, on August 10, one day before Ortega’s Esquire interview was published, British regulators authorized Foundayo, Eli Lilly’s once-daily orforglipron pill, for weight management and type 2 diabetes.
The UK became the first European country to approve it.
Orforglipron, like semaglutide, is another GLP-1 receptor agonist. Eli Lilly says it can be taken at any time of day without the food and water restrictions attached to some oral medications.
Trials have also suggested a potential role for oral GLP-1 treatment in helping people maintain weight loss after losing weight through injectable medications.
British experts have welcomed the additional option, particularly because tablets may prove more convenient and potentially less expensive for some patients.
"Stop normalizing this," a viewer wrote
