Jarring Side-By-Side Pics Of Sarah Huckabee Sanders Show How Drastically She's Changed

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As the daughter of former Arkansas governor and current U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is no stranger to the political spotlight. As such, Sanders has undergone a major transformation since her early days. Because the public has gotten so used to seeing her regularly, first as White House press secretary and later as Governor of Arkansas, it's sometimes hard to realize how much she has changed over the years.

But thanks to TBTs, Sanders has given us visual evidence of her evolving looks. In September 2020, she shared a throwback picture on Facebook from her father's inauguration as governor of Arkansas in the 90s. Sanders, who was just a teenager, embraced the decade's style. As seen below, she rocked a choker necklace and a matching black strapless dress. Her hair was pulled back, with loose strands at the front that older millennials will surely recognize with fondness.

In August 2025, Sanders shared a current photo with Huckabee (seen above) to celebrate his milestone 70th birthday with her Instagram followers, showing how much the pair has changed. Her style has definitely taken a 180. While the teenage Sanders kept up with the trends, her older counterpart did not. Sanders has a penchant for wearing ill-fitting outfits that do her no favors. However, Sanders went through many other physical changes between those two photos.

The Sarah Huckabee Sanders who rose to prominence during Donald Trump's first presidential term looked rather different from the one we have gotten used to seeing as the Governor of Arkansas. At some point between her inauguration in January 2023 and the 2024 Republican National Convention, she lost a lot of weight. When she became governor, Sanders still looked like she did when she was Donald Trump's press secretary. Only a short time later, Sanders' weight loss transformation was impossible to ignore.

The drastic change quickly got people talking, igniting rumors that Sanders used Ozempic to drop weight. "Just like with opioids, over half the nation's supply of Ozempic is going to one pharmacy in Arkansas," a popular X account wrote following her RNC appearance. However, others reminded the critics that Sanders has faced health issues in recent years. In September 2022, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, for which she underwent surgery a year later. 

Since she hasn't addressed her weight loss, it is unclear whether she took medication or if something else was behind it. But she has opened up about the body shaming she faced since rising in the political ranks as a Republican. "Nothing was off-limits to the angriest Trump haters: my character, my weight and appearance, even my fitness to be a mother," she wrote in her 2020 book, "Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House."