Eric Stonestreet, the actor known for playing Cam on Modern Family, is teaming up with his mother to sell the weight-loss drug Mounjaro.
The duo features in a paid partnership video on Stonestreet’s Instagram, where he revealed that they both use the drug to treat type 2 diabetes.
“My mom, Jamey, and I are proud to share our success stories with Mounjaro,” he wrote in the caption. “We hope to inspire others to talk to their doctors to get the treatment they need.”
The two-time Emmy winner and his mom give a 30-second plug for the drug before the video cuts to a clip of the two wearing gem-studded sunglasses as they jam on a drum set. During the remaining two-plus minutes, a voiceover details Mounjaro’s warnings and side effects, which can include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting.
Mounjaro is sold by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. Like better-known Ozempic, it is in the GLP-1 class of drugs, which can help regulate blood sugar for people with diabetes and promote weight loss.
In a People interview that accompanied the marketing campaign, Stonestreet said he and his mother have both shed weight while taking the medication.
“I kind of was at the same weight for many years, but then in the last year when I started to really contribute more to it, I’ve dropped a substantial amount of weight,” he said.
The 53-year-old actor also opened up about his experience with type 2 diabetes, revealing that he received the diagnosis in 2009, just as he was cast on Modern Family. The ABC sitcom would win 22 Emmys during its 11-season run.
“It was like this crazy happy moment cut with this diagnosis that I truthfully didn’t take very seriously,” he said.
Stonestreet said that the diagnosis became a point of embarrassment. For the first several years of his relationship with his now-fiancée, Lindsay Schweitzer, he even kept it a secret.
“I would hide my injectables and my pills from her,” he said. “I didn’t want her to open the fridge and see something in there.”
But his relationship with Schweitzer and her two 13-year-old sons convinced Stonestreet that he had to start confronting his health head-on. He started taking Mounjaro when it hit the market in 2022.
“I felt like, well, if I don’t do something along with it, I’m disappointing it. I’m letting it down. Here these people have invented this incredible thing that clearly does its part. Now I need to contribute my part,” he told People. “And it turns out that when you do that and make some really great choices, weight loss is also a byproduct of that.”
GLP-1 drugs, chiefly Ozempic, have emerged as a popular route to weight loss over the last several years. A number of celebrities have gone public about taking them, including Kathy Bates, Meghan Trainor, and Rebel Wilson.
