Remi Bader Finally Tells Her Weight Loss Story

After months of speculation and online accusations, Remi Bader is ready to share what really happened with her dramatic weight transformation. The model and influencer recently revealed on Instagram that she underwent weight loss surgery in 2023, a decision she deliberately kept private despite intense public scrutiny.

On Khloé In Wonder Land with Khloé Kardashian, Bader opens up about this journey and why she wants to share her story now: “I needed to do it for me. I needed to give myself the last year to heal and figure out what just happened,” Bader says. 

Kardashian, who’s known Bader for years (through the original Good American campaigns), says the 30-year-old is now giving serious “don’t f*** with me” energy—and Bader doesn’t disagree. They get real about the harsh reality of online trolling, body image struggles, and finding self-worth in a world obsessed with weight. Spoiler alert: The internet got a lot wrong about her journey.

When your body becomes everyone’s business

Since joining social media four years ago, Bade has been an open book with her followers. The downside? A constant stream of opinions about her weight and body.

Bader’s health and weight struggles started early, with her parents pushing her to lose weight. Friends, family, and even boyfriends made similar comments over the years. In 2023, she says she gained about 80 to 100 pounds. “Everyone else online would let me know how much weight I gained,” she says.

As the pressure to lose weight intensified, her health continued to decline. She had debilitating back pain and knee issues that forced her to become bedridden. She explains, “I had a constant period, and my doctor told me I was becoming infertile at 28 years old, which is scary. Doctors were telling me I was morbidly obese. I was literally in so much pain that it was hard to walk.”

Bader tried everything—restrictive diets, overeaters’ anonymous meetings, and even Ozempic. “I tried everything. I even tried Ozempic in 2020 before it became really popular, but I was getting sick every day. It didn’t work for me. Once I went off of it, I gained even more weight,” she recalls of her experience on the GLP-1 drug.

Bader’s experience with bariatric surgery

After exhausting every weight loss option, Bader looked into bariatric surgery, a type of surgery that modifies the stomach and intestines to induce weight loss. Bader says her initial plan was a gastric sleeve surgery, but her surgeon suggested otherwise. 

“My surgeon told me not to do it. The sleeve is where they cut out 80 percent of the stomach. It’s a pretty quick surgery compared to other bariatric surgeries. But the thing is, if you continue binge eating or emotional eating, you could stretch your stomach back,” she explains. Kardashian tells Bader she knows people who have had this outcome.

Bader ended up undergoing a single anastomosis duodenal-ileal bypass (SADI-S) with sleeve gastrectomy, a procedure that removed most of her stomach and rerouted her intestines. Her body reacted differently than expected: “I thought the recovery would be simple, but it was one of the worst things of my life. I could not leave the hospital. I could not drink water, and I was projectile vomiting. That went on for six weeks, and I ended up going home to live with my parents,” Bader says. 

After the surgery, she fell into a deep depression and had a lot of regret: “I’d always been this person that people looked up to who said to be confident with whatever you look like. If you are in a bigger body, you can be happy and healthy. I just could not get there because my journey was different because I was in pain and struggling with health. This surgery is what I felt I needed to do,” she explains.

Body image, self-acceptance and the road to happiness 

Despite the difficult recovery, Bader’s health has dramatically improved. Her blood work is normal, her back and knee pain are gone, her periods have regulated, and her energy has increased. Even the excessive sweating has stopped.

Since the weight loss, Bader is still learning to love herself: “I am probably the only person who has gone into a weight loss surgery and asked, ‘How do I make sure I don’t lose too much and I stay curvy?’ I wanted to be healthy and still be curvy.” 

Kardashian and Bader both voice their frustration by how society constantly repositions women based on their size. Bader says, “The negative is I’ve lost a little bit of identity in myself, but the truth is I’m not sure I ever had it. When I first came online, I was not big enough to be plus size. Then, I became too big to work with fashion brands and designers. Now, I’m too skinny. It’s exhausting.”

Bader emphasizes that her choice was deeply personal and does not want to prescribe a one-size-fits-all method for her followers: “When you say something as a content creator or someone with a following people listen to you. It’s a lot of responsibility. I’m sharing my journey, but I’m not here to tell anyone what to do,” Bader says.

You don’t have to share everything with the internet

Despite understanding why people wanted answers about her transformation, Bader stands firm on her right to privacy. “I don’t owe anyone anything. It’s hard to have my boundaries. I knew losing weight was going to be something I should talk about, but not in the way it’s been received online—like I owe it to people or I’ve let down women or society.”

Although the pressure is relentless, Bader wants to share her story on her terms: “You should see the messages I get on the daily. They’re just like ‘Are you going to give us answers? Are you going to tell us how you lost the weight? You’re lying!’ I feel like people just want an answer from me, and that’s not what I am giving. I just want it to be on my terms, when I am ready and because I want to. Not because anyone’s making me,” she says.  

Kardashian agrees that in this industry people feel like they have the right to know everything and say anything about you. “I guess they do have that right, but you have the right to limit yourself to what type of exposure you want. I am proud of you for setting the boundary—whatever the boundary is. The fact that you did not feel like you had to continuously feed the beast—that’s respectable.”

To all the haters who say Bader has changed, she agrees: “I’m genuinely happy, and it is so much more than just the weight loss.”