The Untold Truth Of My 600-Lb. Life's Dr. Now

Younan Nowzaradan, more commonly known among his fans as "Dr. Now," is the face of "My 600-lb Life." For over 130 episodes, the renowned physician has guided desperate patients on a perilous path to recovery. These individuals often have nowhere else to turn, but Dr. Now steps as a beacon of light during their darkest hour, providing them with healthy living tools, diet plans, and life-saving surgeries.

He's adored by fans not only as a doctor but as a charismatic TV personality, often amusing audiences with his frank and somewhat salty demeanor. He's an adorable curmudgeon, and having starred in the series for over a decade now, viewers have no doubt gotten to know this medicine man quite well. However, there's still so much more to Dr. Now left to know. So go ahead, take a peek into the operating room, and learn all about his journey from Iran to the world of American reality TV.

Dr. Now may be a national television sensation in America, but he's far from local. His exact ethnicity is Assyrian Iranian-American, as nearly eight decades ago, he was born and bred in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. As Assyrians are a minority ethnic group in Iran, Dr. Now is no stranger to struggle, and he worked hard in his early years to earn a medical degree from the University of Tehran.

After graduating in 1970, Dr. Now made his way over to the United States to attend a medical orientation program at Missouri's St. Louis University. He then completed a rotating surgical internship at St. John's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, before taking up a four-year surgical residency at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.

Following his residency, Dr. Now moved once more for a Cardiovascular Fellowship at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, which is where he eventually made a name for himself as a medical pioneer and soon-to-be television star. As of now, Dr. Now is revered as an accomplished medical practitioner with 28 years of surgical experience.

While Dr. Now is famous among fans for his work on "My 600-lb. Life," he's perhaps more revered in the medical community as an early game-changer who altered surgical practices forever. This story actually begins with another medical pioneer, Denton Cooley, highly regarded as the first surgeon to successfully implant an artificial heart in a living patient. While Dr. Now was completing his surgical residency at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Denton Cooley spotted him as a diamond in the rough. As a medical pioneer himself, he had an eye for talent, and Dr. Now stood out to him.

Cooley encouraged Dr. Now to join the Texas Heart Institute fellowship in Houston once his training in Nashville was complete, and Dr. Now obliged. Once at Texas Heart, Dr. Now proved Cooley's intuition right by making waves as the first Houston doctor to widely embrace laparoscopic surgery. This is a very specific form of minimally invasive surgery whereby smaller-than-average cuts are made to insert a camera inside a patient's body so that the surgeon can look around without having to physically explore the body via larger incisions. At the time, the use of laparoscopes was cutting-edge, and Dr. Now found himself at the forefront of modern medicine, enthusiastically adopting the technique when not many else were.

While weight-loss surgeries like gastric bypass, vertical-sleeve gastrectomy, and skin removal are what Dr. Now is best known for, and what he most commonly practices, they're not the only tricks up this surgeon's sleeve. Many fans might not be aware that he has a prominent background in cardiology, and spent much of his early career performing cardiac and other heart-related operations.

Following his early stint in cardiology, Dr. Now put serious time into curating a diversified portfolio of medical expertise, with a wide variety of surgical skills including laparoscopic appendectomies (specialized abdominal surgery) and cholecystectomies (gall bladder removal surgery). In fact, a large portion of Dr. Now's career has been as a general surgeon, not a weight loss specialist.

It might go without saying, but reality television doesn't always show you the full picture. On camera, Dr. Now may appear to be busy operating on "My 600-lb. Life" participants 24/7, but to this day, Dr. Now still performs generalized surgeries and procedures on a wide variety of off-camera patients.

Dr. Now is a star on the small screen, but how did he get there? How did one man go from being an average Texas surgeon to the face of a hit reality television series? The answer is closer than you might think: Dr. Now's son, Jonathan Nowzaradan, should be partially credited for kickstarting this claim to fame.

It began exactly two decades ago in 2003, when Jonathan founded the production company Megalomedia. After a few years of spent creating personal, under-the-radar projects, Megalomedia distributed its first documentary film, "World's Heaviest Woman." This film documented the journey of Renee Williams, an 841 lb. woman who was seeking weight loss surgery, but was routinely getting turned away by doctors who felt her case was too big of a risk to stake their medical reputation on. Who was the first doctor brave enough to take on her case and agree to the surgery? You guessed it — Dr. Now.

Jonathan heard about this risky venture his father was embarking on, and decided to make it a Megalomedia production, proceeding to round up a camera crew to film the entire procedure. While the surgery was a success, Williams passed away from a heart attack two weeks following the operation. Despite the tragic turn of events, it was a grand slam for Megalomedia, as "World's Heaviest Woman" quickly drew press attention from the likes of Enter­tainment Tonight, The Insider, Inside Edition, The View, and 20/20.

Following "World's Heaviest Woman," Megalomedia would continue chronicling weight loss journeys with the six-episode series "Last Chance to Live," which eventually became "My 600-lb. Life." Dr. Now was already an accomplished surgeon, but it was his son who showcased his skillset to the world. Dr. Now is essentially a reverse nepotism baby. A nepotism parent, perhaps?

In addition to serving as the starring surgeon on "My 600-lb. Life," Dr. Now has appeared in several other reality and documentary television projects, all of which feature Dr. Now as a medical expert in weight-loss journeys and surgeries.

In 2003, Dr. Now appeared in "Bodyshock," a British medical documentary series exploring the extreme conditions that can be survived by the human body. That same year, Dr. Now also appeared in "Shrinking the World's Heaviest Man," a TV movie profiling the life and weight-loss journey of 1225 lb. Manuel Uribe. In 2009, he appeared in "Survival of the Half-Ton Teen," a TLC documentary showcasing the dangers of extreme obesity through a case study on Billy Robbins, an 800 lb. teenager who eats 3,000 calories a day.

In addition to these outside projects, Dr. Now has also appeared in "My 600-lb. Life: Where Are They Now?" This series has been running since 2015, and acts as a spin-off to the original, providing follow-ups and more recent updates on the lives and weight loss journeys of previous "My 600-lb. Life" participants.

Some people might be wondering, how much is Dr. Now really worth? Not only is he a surgeon, a profession that notoriously earns extremely high salaries, but he's also a television star, and they make even more. He's got to be rich, right? Well, that would be a correct assumption, as Wealthy Persons estimates his current net worth at around $6 million.

While he's definitely well-off, this isn't necessarily because of "My 600-lb. Life." While Dr. Now has been routinely performing weight loss surgeries on the show's participants for over a decade, he doesn't actually earn much from these operations, as their medical expenses are reportedly paid for by production. This might come as a surprise, as you would expect Dr. Now to at least want some form of compensation for all his hard work, but he told Houstonia that he's motivated by a desire to help people, not to profit off of them, "Looking at the moral obligation that we've got, you see somebody who has no life who could have a life ... We don't need to be rich."

If he's not making money from the show's surgeries, then how is he worth millions? Let's not forget that Dr. Now has many patients who are not part of the series at all, and he's been a practicing surgeon for almost three decades. Also, just because he's not getting paid for the surgeries, that doesn't mean he's not getting paid for his on-screen appearances.

While some people might get into either the surgery or television game for fame and fortune, it's more than just a profession for Dr. Now, it's a calling. In a profile by Houstonia, Dr. Now boasted about the personal benefits he reaps from making a living out of helping people, "Taking care of these people, that's my job," he says with a grin. "I never worked a day in my life."

While he certainly enjoys his work, he has also conceded that's not always a walk in the park. He told People that he often becomes frustrated with patients who fail to follow through on the guidelines and health plans he puts in place for them, saying, "It's a daily challenge to work with some patients that can be self-destructive." While he often tries to drill into them the necessity of these lifestyle changes by adopting a tough love, no-nonsense approach, it's not always enough. "There have been a few patients I felt I could no longer help."

He went on to stress that one of the deciding factors between whether or not he can save a patient is if they have an emotional support system available to them, "Having a supportive family for patients on a weight loss journey is an important component to their success ... If they don't have that, it's almost impossible for them to be successful in the long term."

While Dr. Now has provided many patients with hope and success, he's also had a few patients with less-than-optimal results. Several of these patients, or their loved ones, have gone on to sue Dr. Now for allegedly mishandling their treatment, or even contributing to their death.

In 2007, Dr. Now was sued for malpractice by Colleen Shepherd, whose daughter Tina Shepherd died from health complications one year after Dr. Now performed gastric bypass surgery on her. Colleen alleged that Dr. Now failed to adequately inform Tina of the risks surgery posed, and ignored her post-operative health issues. In 2012, Michelle Park sued Dr. Now for allegedly leaving a piece of tubing inside of her body while performing her gastric sleeve surgery. That same year, Dr. Now was also sued by a former patient's wife, who claimed that he exhibited medical negligence which contributed to her husband's death. In 2017, Dr. Now was sued for personal injury by a patient claiming he botched her surgery, causing her extreme pain and physical deformity.

On top of all of these lawsuits, Dr. Now also faces scandal with the lawsuits filed against the "My 600-lb. Life" production company, Megalomedia. While these suits are more targeted against show producers for alleged emotional, financial, and physical abuse, some of the charges do involve Dr. Now to a certain extent. Several patients claim that while on the show, they were put on extreme diets by Dr. Now, but forced to eat unhealthy foods by production. Then they were shamed by Dr. Now for not being able to follow his treatment plan. While it's unclear how much knowledge Dr. Now had of these unethical production practices, it doesn't really bode well for his overall reputation.

In 1975, while completing his surgical residency in Nashville, Dr. Now married Delores McRedmond. The two were married for over 27 years and had three children together. While there were no doubt many years of happiness shared between the two lovers, their relationship eventually collapsed. In 2002, Delores filed for a divorce, hoping to close the books on a nearly three-decade stint with Dr. Now.

This was no amicable divorce — this was an all-out war. The couple spent two years battling out the divorce before taking it to court and finalizing the split via trial in 2004. Though Dolores was ready to cut ties, Dr. Now wasn't going to let her get away that easy. He appealed the court's decision to dissolve the marriage, but this request was denied several years later in 2007.

While what happened behind the closed doors of their marriage will only really be known to Dr. Now and Dolores, according to legal files obtained by Justia, it was a less-than-perfect partnership. "The trial court attributed fault in the breakup of the marriage to Younan, dissolved the marriage on grounds of cruelty and insupportability, and concluded that Younan committed waste of community assets." In the end, Dolores walked away with 70% of their shared assets, a significant cash-out for the 27 years she spent as a housewife and caretaker during their marriage.

In addition to working as a surgeon and television star, Dr. Now has also dabbled in writing. In 2019, he published his first book, "The Scale Does Not Lie, People Do," which chronicles his four-decade journey in treating obesity. The book explores Dr. Now's personal experience with patients, as well as everything he's learned along the way, from basic facts to incorrect assumptions about the epidemic.

When discussing this book with the Houston Chronicle, Dr. Now emphasized the complicated nature of treating this insidious disease, and how there's a lot more that goes into it than people realize, saying, "Obesity is not a choice for people ... It's not something that most people can walk their weight off with diet and exercise."

While he stresses that a healthy diet isn't the only step on a patient's road to recovery, it is one crucial part of the process. In order to guide individuals along this path, Dr. Now has also published several diet plan books. These books provide readers with healthy recipes and tools for clean eating, straight from the expert himself.

One of the more interesting trends to plague today's modern world is the celebrity death hoax, whereby speculation or false reports of a certain A-lister's death start to circulate online and in the media. In 2021, Dr. Now found himself facing this phenomenon head-on, as he himself became a victim of a death rumor.

He was working in his office at St. Joseph's Medical Center when a slew of concerned "My 600-lb Life" fans began calling into the hospital to confirm that he had, in fact, passed away. This was news to the disoriented doctor, who was very much alive, so he quickly took to social media to clear up any misinformation regarding his vitality.

He reassured fans via Instagram that these rumors were false, and not to sound the alarm bells just yet, writing, "Thank you for the outpouring of concern! I am definitely alive and well and still working to reverse obesity." He went on to emphasize that you can't believe everything you read, but you can best believe he's nowhere near finished doing his good deeds. "I can assure you these headlines are false. In fact, there are many false headlines out there about me, but these are the common tides we navigate and one must keep doing the work we are meant to do."

On top of candid selfies and health-related posts like information reels and gym tips, Dr. Now also shares many of his personal hobbies on social media. He's more than just a doctor, after all — he's also a human being, and if you take a look at his Instagram page, you'll see there's much more to the man than medicine.

Dr. Now frequently posts about a wide variety of his personal interests and hobbies, including spending time with his family, playing guitar, building an interesting array of LEGO sets, playing chess, and making artwork. He also wants the world to know that he's a proud, full-time dog dad to three adorable white Maltese pups. His on-screen persona is more than entertaining, but if you're curious about what he gets up to when he's not being featured on "My 600-lb. Life," he's definitely worth a follow.

While Dr. Now has his own official merch store selling magnets, t-shirts, personal paintings, and more, that's not the only place to find Dr. Now-inspired goods. His daughter, Jennifer Nowzaradan Paul, also has her own online craft store called Zaradan Fine Art where she sells paintings and hand-crafted jewelry. Two painters in the family? It looks like the art gene runs deep in the Nowzaradan home.

While there are no doubt many die-hard Dr. Now fans out there, Jennifer may be the biggest fan of all. In addition to the original art, jewelry, and custom-commissioned pieces she has available at her store, much of Jennifer's work features Dr. Now himself, which Jennifer often proudly showcases on her social media. If you're looking to dress up wearing the likeness of your favorite doctor, Jennifer's got you covered, from dangly earrings of her father's face to charms for bracelets.