Miriam Margolyes is sharing a heartbreaking update amid her health struggles.
The “Harry Potter” actress, 84, who portrayed Professor Sprout in the films, opened up to Weekend Magazine about feeling defeated by her ongoing issues.
Margolyes noted that she believes the health problems are primarily due to her weight.
“I’ve let my body down,” she expressed. “I haven’t taken care of it. I have to walk with a walker now. I wish I’d done exercise. It’s the most ghastly waste of time, except that it keeps you going. So, I’m foolish.”
The reporter then asked Margolyes if she would try Ozempic, the FDA-approved medication for people with type 2 diabetes.
“Absolutely not,” she stated. “That’s for diabetics. You shouldn’t take medicine meant for people who are really sick. What I do think is we should not have food advertising on television.”
Margolyes’s update comes on the heels of the actress revealing she “doesn’t have long left to live” following a heart procedure.
“When you know that you haven’t got long to live, and I’m probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before, I’m loath to leave behind performing,” Margolyes told The Times, per The Mirror, in May.
“It’s such a joy,” she added. “I yearn to play roles that don’t confine me to wheelchairs, but I’m just not strong enough.”
Along with starring in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” Margolyes also appeared in TV shows like “Doctor Who” and “Call the Midwife.”
In May 2023, Margolyes was hospitalized for a chest infection at the Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea, London.
“Thanks to my precious friends who thought of me on TAVI DAY,” the “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” actress wrote on Facebook from her hospital bed. “I did survive and am still in The Royal Brompton Hospital certainly till Sunday. I am growing energy but it’s still not quite me. I am putting this so you know how grateful I am for lovely messages.”
In October 2023, the British-Australian star revealed she received a transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
Margolyes underwent the procedure to avoid having to undergo future open-heart surgeries and got candid about her experience on the “Table Manners” podcast with Jessie and Lennie Ware.
“I’ve got a cow’s heart now,” Margolyes joked. “Well, not the whole heart. I’ve had an aortic valve replaced by a cow’s aortic valve.”
“I don’t know how common it is. I’d never heard of that operation,” she admitted. “But it saves you from having open heart surgery, which would be infinitely more invasive.”
Despite Margolyes’ surgery being a success, she also suffers from mobility issues after being diagnosed with spinal stenosis.
The condition causes narrowing of the spinal canal, and Maroglyes was forced to register as disabled. She uses canes, walkers, wheelchairs and a mobility scooter to get around.
“I can’t walk very well, and I’m registered disabled,” Maroglyes explained to Closer Magazine last year. “I use all kinds of assistance. I’ve got two sticks and a walker, and they’re such a bore, but I’ve just got a mobility scooter, which is a lot of fun.”
While the star has spoken openly about her mortality, she previously revealed she isn’t afraid of death.
“When you’re young, you never think about death. You just think about your next f—k basically,” Margolyes said to British Vogue in June 2023. “I think about death a lot.”
“You can’t help but be aware that the amount of time ahead is less than the time before you,” she added. “I’m still ducking and diving. I’m still open to new experiences. I’m just very conscious that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.”
Over the years, the “Harry Potter” franchise lost many of their own, including Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Michael Gambon and Richard Harris (Albus Dumbledore), and Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid).