Johann Hari and his publisher Bloomsbury have apologised after the author wrongly claimed in his latest book that Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner had taken the diabetes drug Ozempic.
In Magic Pill, Hari claimed that Rayner said Ozempic “robbed him of his pleasure in food so severely that even in great restaurants in Paris, he couldn’t find any joy”. In an X post on Sunday, Rayner said that Hari’s claim was “complete and utter bollocks” and that he has “never used Ozempic or anything similar”, linking to a column he wrote in which he had explained why he would never take the drugs. He said that he was “mystified” as to why Bloomsbury “did not go through the text with a fine tooth comb”.
