Shonda Rhimes Says She Once Feared She’d be ‘Dead in 10 Years’ amid Poor Health

Shonda Rhimes is opening up about the turning point in her health journey.

On Tuesday, Oct. 14, the producer and screenwriter, 55, spoke at the ‘Shonda Rhimes in Conversation with Robin Roberts: Year of Yes at 92NY’ event about how her three children were pivotal in changing her lifestyle and health after she once feared her life would be cut short.

Mentioning how Rhimes opens up about her health journey in the expanded edition of her book Year of Yes, host Robin Roberts recalled, “I love the story that you tell when your daughter, you put her on your shoulders and you were able to run around with her and up the steps and there’s a time that you couldn’t do that. And how you literally cried after.”

“I did. I have little kids, guys and I really thought like I might be dead in 10 years,” Rhimes replied. “Like that’s how bad I felt. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t put my 20 pound kid on my shoulders and run around, which I should have been able to do.”

The Shondaland founder, who is mom to daughters Harper, 22, Emerson, 12, and Beckett, 11, added, “And so when that moment happened, when I could do that, it was such a moment of both relief and revelation for me that it’s one of those memories I’ll take with me forever.”

“Like that moment her joy and me sort of having done it and feeling like, ‘Oh my God, I feel myself again,’ ” she said.

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Rhimes, who has previously opened up about her weight loss, also spoke about how she used to have an unhealthy relationship with food and that her “mantra was my body is just a container for my brain.”

“At a certain point I started to feel like truly feel terrible. Like have a hard time going up the stairs, getting breathless all the time,” she said during the conversation. “Feeling like I had, like, I had sleep apnea, I developed sleep apnea and I like woke up all the time, choking in, in my sleep. Like I started to feel awful and I was like, I have to do something about this.”

“I’d been saying like a happy yes to being out of shape and uncomfortable because food, food works guys,” the Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal writer continued, jokingly adding, “You can put fried chicken on your sadness, you can put cheesecake on your heartbreak.”

Rhimes went on to say that despite her choosing a healthier path now, she still doesn’t restrict herself when it comes to food.

“Like I’m not a person who’s one of those people who’s like, ‘I now only eat salads,’ ” she said. “It’s just about using it in the right ways.” 

The mother of three has been vocal about her health journey in the past.

Back in 2015, Rhimes appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and revealed that being unable to buckle her seatbelt on a plane also contributed to her 117 lbs. weight loss at the time.

Though, she maintained that her children were the main reasons for her health journey.

“It really was about the fact that I have a 3-year-old, and a 2-year-old, and a 13-year-old, and I kind of wanted to be around for them, to be healthy,” she told DeGeneres, 67. “I’m super feminist, and I’m like, ‘Everybody should be whatever shape they want to be, how dare anybody tell anybody anything!’ – and then I thought like, ‘I’m going to fall over, cause I don’t feel good.’ So it was really about that.”

She also told PEOPLE at the time that her weight loss has “never truly been about a number.”

“It’s just about feeling good. I feel good and really healthy,” she added. “And I’m going to work to stay in that space.”