Marie Osmond wasn’t in tip-top shape when she signed up to appear on season five of Dancing with the Stars in 2007. The show is known for grueling 12 hour daily rehearsals and it took its toll on the entertainment icon. The 59-year-old is the mom to eight children and when she fainted while competing live on the show, they were terrified that her extra pounds might kill her. “It’s hard when you have to work – I was the provider, so for my children to understand that and love me and care enough about me to say, ‘Mom, you’re going to die, we need you. Please lose the weight,'” she tells PEOPLE magazine in a new interview on Jan. 28. After losing 20 pounds on DWTS she joined the diet plan Nutrisystem and lost another 30, making her 50 pounds lighter and she’s kept the weight off.
“I’ve got to be honest. I was overweight and out of shape. I didn’t feel good. I was tired. My joints ached. My confidence was down. Like so many of you, I was unhappy about how I looked and how I felt. I knew I was getting older but I didn’t want to feel older. Plus, talk about stress. Here I am, a single mom managing a career. It was very easy to put on a few pounds here and a few pounds there. Sometimes life just gets you off track and before you know it, you’re 50 pounds heavier. Well, Nutrisystem got me back on track,” she said on the program’s website at the time as one of their “success stories.
“Look. Losing weight may not make me a better mom. But it does make me a happier mom. As women, we spend a lot of time caring for everyone else but spend zero time for ourselves. I finally did something great for me so I could do something great for my family,” she added at the time.
Marie is the mom to eight kids, three biological and five adopted. She had her eldest son Stephen James Craig, 35, with first husband Stephen Craig (who she later remarried in 2011) then went on the give birth to daughter Rachael, 29, and son Matthew, 19, with second husband Brian Blosil. Along the way the former couple also adopted Jessica, 31, Brandon, 22, Briana, 21, Abigail, 16, and Michael Blosil, who tragically committed suicide in 2010 at aged 19. “They went through a lot of tough stuff. They’re survivors. They are the best things I’ve ever done, ever,” Marie told PEOPLE of her brood, adding that her kids are ” best things I’ve ever done, ever.” She sweetly explained that “Some of my kids are adopted and I can’t remember which ones, but some of them are more like me than my biological and I’m like, ‘I know why God sent you to me!'”‘ Aww!
