Joelle Gwynn made her reality TV debut in Season 7 of The Biggest Loser in 2009. The show had a “couples” theme, and Gwynn competed alongside her friend Carla Triplett.
The ladies were eliminated during Week 5, but their story will be revisited in the upcoming Netflix docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser. Gywnn is one of the former contestants who was interviewed for the three-part show.
Ahead of the release, scroll down to learn more about the Season 7 contestant.
How much weight did Joelle Gwynn lose on The Biggest Loser?
She started the show at 309 lbs. and ended at 229 lbs., for a total of 80 lbs. lost. She also began with a BMI of 47 and completed the show with a BMI of 34.8. Gwynn has not given an update on her current weight.
Are Joelle and Carla still friends?
No, the women did not maintain a close relationship after filming ended. They also famously bickered on the show after Gwynn lost zero pounds during a weigh-in before their elimination.
“I’ve known Joelle for two years. I still consider her a friend and have reached out to her many times but I don’t know how she feels,” Triplett told People in 2009.
As Gwynn explained, “Carla and I were actually more of acquaintances. She did suggest for marketing purposes that we put ‘best friends,’ but we are still interacting in the same way that we did before and we are still working on achieving our goals; we are just doing it separately. I didn’t want to come on the show and do drama. There were some things that were said publicly that were hurtful, but sometimes relationships are rocky like that.”
Why was Joelle Gwynn sued by The Biggest Loser doctor?
In 2016, Gwynn made bombshell claims about her time on the show. She alleged that she was given a pill that made her “jittery and hyper” while competing to lose weight.
“I went and told the sports medicine guy,” she alleged to the New York Post in an article that has since been taken down, per The Hollywood Reporter. “The next day, Dr. [Robert] Huizenga gave us some lame explanation of why they got added to our regimen and that it was up to us to take them.”
Dr. Huizenga and Gwynn’s trainer on the show, Bob Harper, vehemently denied her claims. “Nothing could be father from the truth,” the doctor told the Post. “Contestants are told at the start of the show that there is zero tolerance for any weight-loss drugs.”
Dr. Huizenga sued The New York Post, Gwynn, and other defendants for defamation. In 2019, a judge ruled in Gwynn’s favor in Dr. Huizenga’s lawsuit against her. Judge Laura Taylor Swain said that the doctor couldn’t prove actual malice in his case.
“[He] has not averred any facts regarding his conversations or interactions with Gwynn, or even about the existence or nature of the allegedly illicit pills, that would permit the Court to draw a plausible inference that the Gwynn Statements were untrue, such that Gwynn acted with knowledge of their falsity when making them,” the judge’s decision said, per THR.
What is Joelle Gwynn doing now?
Gwynn will appear in the Fit for TV docuseries and sometimes gives life updates on Facebook, but for the most part she is no longer a public figure.
She briefly ran a YouTube channel and Instagram page called Menopause Hottie, a “regular VLog and podcast on menopause,” in 2021.
Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, Friday, August 15, Netflix
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
