Oprah Winfrey drops 26 pounds and Weight Watchers’ share price leaps 18%

The weight loss company reaped the gains from its new advert promoting Oprah Winfrey eating bread and still losing weight

Oprah Winfrey has boosted the flagging company's share price several times

Weight Watchers’ has reaped the gains from talk show host and icon Oprah Winfrey claiming she lost 26 pounds thanks to its healthy eating program - even though she was still eating bread every day.

The share price of the weight loss company jumped 18% on Tuesday after the new advert aired.

The talk show queen tweeted the advert, saying “Eat bread. lose weight. Whaaatttt? #ComeJoinMe

This is not the first time that the company has received a boost from the billionaire. She became a board member in October last year and bought 10% of the stock.

Weight Watchers has struggled with $2 billion in debt and the share price saw almost three quarters of its value wiped in 2015.

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The company was also the target of a Channel 4 documentary in the UK in 2013 which exposed that employees were flogging its own-branded products with high levels of commission.

However, the after Ms Winfrey announced the partnership last October, share prices jumped up more than 100%.

Stock prices spiked again later that month when Ms Winfrey said on the Ellen DeGeneres show that she had lost 15 pounds via the point-calculating program.