‘The Bachelor’ fans furious after dating show air time gets delayed for Oprah Winfrey show about Ozempic

'The Bachelor' fans were left furious when they sat down for the latest installment of the popular dating show and found that they had to wait for it.

On Monday (March 18), the start time of the episode was pushed back an hour for Oprah Winfrey’s programme about weight loss drug Ozempic.

'The Bachelor' is currently airing in the United States and is one of the country's most loved reality TV programmes. It usually airs at 8pm local time, but viewers were less than impressed when they realised they would have to wait till 9pm local time for their fix of love and drama, owing to a one-of-special with Winfrey.

What infuriate fans further is they were waiting for a highly-anticipated 'The Women Tell All' episode, and took to social media site X to write about their annoyance.

One wrote: “I was excited to turn on the bachelor but instead Oprah is on my TV giving an infomercial for Ozempic … who asked for this !?!?” Another said: "Oprah, you have your own channel. Talk about Ozempic over there, we don't care. #TheBachelor #Bachelor."

One more added: "We seriously have to wait an hour for #TheBachelor to hear Oprah blab about weight loss for the 500th time?" Another said: "No disrespect to Oprah, but because this “special” didn’t turn out to be a surprise Kate Middleton interview, this schedule change is absolutely uncalled for. How dare. #TheBachelor."

When the 'The Women Tell All' episode did air at 9pm, viewers saw the bachelor Joey Graziadei talk to the women he rejected throughout the season. The episode, which has been a staple in the show's format, is a hit with viewers as it generally stirs up unresolved drama between women on the show. It comes a week before fans find out who Graziadei will actually propose to.

For one week only, Winfrey took over the show’s regularly scheduled time slot to host her ABC special called 'Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution'. Viewers saw her talk to a woman who used an undisclosed weight loss medication to lose 85 pounds, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Talking about the woman’s weight loss, the iconic talk show host, who also famously interviewed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2021, said: “There is now a sense of hope, and you no longer blame yourself. When I tell you how many times I have blamed myself because you think, ‘I’m smart enough to figure this out,’ and then to hear all along it’s you fighting your brain.”

On the show, experts also discussed pharmaceutical weight loss drugs, such as the celebrity favourite and viral TikTok Type two diabetes medication Ozempic. Winfrey said she fronted the special programme to reach the “more than 100 million people” living in the United States, along with the billions around the world, who were struggling with obesity.

In December, Winfrey admitted to using an unnamed weight-loss drug to “manage her weight" after months of speculation. “The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for,” she told People.

Winfrey said during the programme that since taking weight-loss treatment she eats food in smaller portions, and combines it with hiking or running three to five miles a day, healthy diet and weight resistance training. “All these years I thought all of the people who never had to diet were just using their willpower and for some reason, stronger than me. And now I realise, y’all weren’t even thinking about the food. It’s not that you had the willpower, you weren’t obsessing over it, that’s the big thing I learned,” she added.

Winfrey then became emotional when describing the medication as giving people a “sense of hope” as you “no longer blame yourself”. “When I tell you how many times I have blamed myself because you think ‘I’m smart enough to figure this out’ and then to hear all along it’s you fighting your brain,” she said.

Winfrey ended the show by saying: “let’s stop the shaming and blaming, there is no place for it”.