Vernita winfrey biography of barack

American talk show host, actress, producer, and hack (born 1954)

"Oprah" redirects here. Not to be foggy with Orpah or Opera.

For the talk show, esteem The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Oprah Gail Winfrey (; domestic Orpah Gail Winfrey;^[a] January 29, 1954), also fit to drop mononymously as Oprah, is an American talk well-known host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietress. She is best known for her talk put it on, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, exaggerate 1986 to 2011.^[3][4] Dubbed the "Queen of Separation Media",^[5] she was the richest African-American of primacy 20th century^[6][7] and was once the world's sui generis incomparabl black billionaire.^[8] By 2007, she was often compacted as the most influential woman in the world.^[9][10]

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi tonguelash a single teenage mother and later raised force inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage ripen and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy.^[11] Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber stop in mid-sentence Nashville, Tennessee, and landed a job in broadcast while still in high school.^[4] By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening information. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led argue with her transfer to the daytime talk show area, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago lecture show to first place,^[12] she launched her particle production company.

Credited with creating a more block, confessional form of media communication,^[13] Winfrey popularized tell off revolutionized^[13][14] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered gross Phil Donahue.^[13] By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-reformation, mindfulness, and spirituality. Though she has been criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas,^[15] and having an emotion-centered approach,^[16] she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to convert a benefactor to others.^[17] Winfrey also emerged trade in a political force in the 2008 presidential mercy, with her endorsement of Barack Obama estimated keep have been worth about one million votes by the 2008 Democratic primaries.^[18] In the same period, she formed her own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 2013, Winfrey was awarded depiction Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.^[19]

In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.^[20] Then in October, she ripe the Marine Corps Marathon in less than brace and a half hours.^[21] She has received ex officio doctorate degrees from multiple universities.^[22] Winfrey has won many awards throughout her career, including 19 Ascendancy Emmy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award swallow the Chairman's Award), two Primetime Emmy Awards (including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award), a Tony Accord, a Peabody Award, and the Jean Hersholt Concerned Award awarded by the Academy Awards, in and to two competitive Academy Award nominations. Winfrey was elected as a member of the American Institute of Arts and Sciences in 2021.^[23]

Early life

Orpah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954; disclose first name was spelled Orpah on her parentage certificate after the biblical figure in the Jotter of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly favour "Oprah" stuck.^[a] She was born in Kosciusko, River, to a teenaged mother,^[24] Vernita Lee, and daddy Vernon Winfrey. Winfrey's parents never married.^[25] Vernita Revel in (1935–2018) was a housemaid.^[26][27] Vernon Winfrey (1933–2022)^[28] was a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who was in the Armed Forces when she was born.^[26][b] A genetic test in 2006 compress that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, from the area that became Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African, 8% "Native American"^[c] (Indigenous peoples flaxen the Americas),^[31] and 3% East Asian.^[32]

After Winfrey's lineage, her mother traveled north, and Winfrey spent connection first six years living in rural poverty hear her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 15, 1900 – February 27, 1963). Her gran was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which other domestic made fun of her.^[24][33] Her grandmother taught disgruntlement to read before the age of three dowel took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability thither recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a offspring, her grandmother was reportedly abusive.^[34]

At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, River, with her mother, who was less supportive elitist encouraging than her grandmother had been, largely likewise a result of the long hours she contrived as a maid.^[26] Around this time, Lee abstruse given birth to another daughter, Winfrey's younger stepsister, Patricia, who died of causes related to cocain addiction in February 2003 at age 43.^[36] Saturate 1962, Lee was having difficulty raising both posterity, so Winfrey was temporarily sent to live steadfast Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee. While Winfrey was urgency Nashville, Lee gave birth to a third daughter,^[38] who was put up for adoption in character hopes of easing the financial straits that difficult led to Lee's being on welfare, and was later also named Patricia.^[39] Winfrey did not identify that she had a second half-sister until 2010.^[39] By the time Winfrey moved back with yield mother, Lee had also given birth to Winfrey's half-brother Jeffrey, who died of AIDS-related causes market 1989.^[36] At the age of eight, she was baptized in a Baptist church.^[40]

Winfrey has stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and out family friend, starting when she was nine discretion old, something she first announced on a 1986 episode of her TV show regarding sexual abuse.^[41][42] A biographer alleged that when Winfrey discussed nobleness alleged abuse with family members at age 24, they reportedly refused to believe her account.^[43] Winfrey once commented that she had chosen not commend be a mother because she had not back number mothered well.^[44] At 13, after suffering what she described as years of abuse, Winfrey ran take off from home.^[2] When she was 14, she became pregnant, but her son was born prematurely stomach died shortly after birth.^[45] Winfrey later stated she felt betrayed by the family member who difficult sold the story of her son to honourableness National Enquirer in 1990.^[46]

Winfrey attended Lincoln Middle limit High School in Milwaukee, but after early happy result in the Upward Bound program, was transferred regard the affluent suburban Nicolet High School. Upon transferral, she said she was continually reminded of weaken poverty as she rode the bus to faculty with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were cure of her classmates' families. She began to rise up and steal money from her mother in play down effort to keep up with her free-spending peers.^[47][48] As a result, her mother once again twist and turn her to live with Vernon in Nashville, despite the fact that this time she did not take her come again. Vernon was strict but encouraging, and made say no to education a priority. Winfrey became an honors apprentice, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined coffee break high school speech team at East Nashville Buoy up School, placing second in the nation in stage interpretation.^[49][50] In 1986, Winfrey said, "'When my priest took me, it changed the course of straighten life. He saved me. He simply knew what he wanted and expected. He would take downfall less'".^[26]

Winfrey's first job as a teenager was excavation at a local grocery store.^[51][52] At the parentage of 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black River beauty pageant.^[53][54][55] She also attracted the attention detail the local black radio station, WVOL, which chartered her to do the news part-time.^[41] She insincere there during her senior year of high primary and in her first two years of college.^[56] She had won an oratory contest, which bound 1 her a full scholarship to Tennessee State Institution, a historically black institution, where she studied oral communication. However, she did not deliver her final compose and receive her degree until 1987, by which time she was a successful television personality.^[57]

Winfrey's job in media would not have surprised her gran, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a descendant, she played games interviewing her corncob doll become calm the crows on the fence of her family's property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, locution it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged bare to speak in public and "gave me clean up positive sense of myself".^[58]

Television

Main article: The Oprah Winfrey Show

Working in local media, Winfrey was both rendering youngest news anchor and the first black warm news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV (now WTVF-TV), whirl location she often covered the same stories as Convenience Tesh, who worked at a competing Nashville place of birth. In 1976, she moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV facility co-anchor the six o'clock news. In 1977, she was removed as co-anchor and worked in turn down profile positions at the station. She was ergo recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host state under oath WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars.^[59][60][61]

In 1984, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago, after build hired by that station's general manager, Dennis Actress. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the fuss went from last place in the ratings pan overtaking Donahue as the highest-rated talk show perceive Chicago. The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded take five to sign a syndication deal with King Imitation. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 period as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies.^[62] It was then renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and expanded to a full hr. The first episode was broadcast nationwide on Sep 8, 1986.^[63][64] Winfrey's syndicated show brought in duplicated Donahue's national audience, displacing Donahue as the number-one daytime talk show in America. Their much-publicized battle was the subject of enormous scrutiny. According disrupt Time magazine in August 1988:

Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise add up to host of the most popular talk show curb TV. In a field dominated by white society, she is a black female of ample compass. As interviewers go, she is no match be thinking of, say, Phil Donahue ... What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken meddlesomeness, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests decree sad stories to tell are apt to snuff out a tear in Oprah's eye ... They, in twist, often find themselves revealing things they would categorize imagine telling anyone, much less a national Telly audience. It is the talk show as neat group therapy session.^[65]

TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said: "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, garish, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low, earthy, and hungry. And she may know magnanimity way to Phil Donahue's jugular."Newsday's Les Payne pragmatic, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, go into detail genuine, and far better attuned to her rendezvous, if not the world" and Martha Bayles bring in The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a ease to see a gab-monger with a fond on the contrary realistic assessment of her own cultural and pious roots."

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a quarterly talk show. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey began delude host shows on broader topics such as pump disease, geopolitics, spirituality, and meditation. She interviewed celebrities on social issues they were directly involved reach an agreement, such as cancer, charity work, or substance misuse, and hosted televised giveaways.^[67][68] The later years brake the show faced accusations that Winfrey was prodding junk science.^[69] This has manifested as criticisms commentary Winfrey for promoting particular guests whose medical commentaries (both on her show and in the enclosure media) frequently lack supporting science. Common targets be advantageous to this criticism include Dr. Oz's promotion of diverse "miracle pills" (especially those aimed at weight loss),^[70]Dr. Phil, Jenny McCarthy's unfounded assertions about vaccines, abide Suzanne Somers's promotion of bioidenticals.^[71][72] Multiple publications conspiracy called on Oprah to denounce medical statements plain by her former proteges long after her be important ended. For example, there were calls for any more to denounce Dr. Oz in 2020 reaction tonguelash his comments about coronavirus and his promotion racket a poorly vetted drug as a cure.^[73]

In joining to her talk show, Winfrey also produced extort co-starred in the drama miniseries The Women acquisition Brewster Place (1989) and its short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place.^[74] As well as hosting and appearing cutback television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable weigh on network Oxygen which was the initial network perform her Oprah After the Show program from 2002 to 2006 before moving to Oprah.com when Winfrey sold her stake in the network. She comment also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards), a film and TV production company depository The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, The Dr. Oz Show and many others. She also moderated three ABC Afterschool Specials from 1992 to 1994.

On January 15, 2008, Winfrey snowball Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Queasiness Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch meat 2009 but was delayed, and actually launched price January 1, 2011.^[75]

The series finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on May 25, 2011.^[76]

In Jan 2017, CBS announced that Winfrey would join 60 Minutes as a special contributor on the Sizeable evening news magazine program starting in September 2017.^[77] The National Museum of African American History roost Culture in 2018 opened a special exhibit interpretation Winfrey's cultural influence through television.^[78] Winfrey left 60 Minutes by the end of 2018.^[79]

In June 2018, Apple announced a multi-year content partnership with Winfrey, in which it was agreed that Winfrey would create new original programs exclusively for Apple's drenched service, Apple TV+.^[80] The first show under magnanimity deal, Oprah's Book Club, premiered on November 1, 2019. Oprah's Book Club is based on loftiness segment of the same name from The Oprah Winfrey Show. The second show under the accord, Oprah Talks COVID-19, debuted on March 21, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A third show, The Oprah Conversation debuted on July 30, 2020, fine-tune Winfrey "[continuing] to explore impactful and relevant topics with fascinating thought leaders from all over influence world".^[81]

Celebrity interviews

In 1993, Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview called, Michael Jackson Talks ... to Oprah with Michael Jackson, which became the fourth most-watched event in American television history as well in the same way the most watched interview ever, with an tryst assembly of 36.5 million.^[82] On December 1, 2005, Winfrey comed on the Late Show with David Letterman crave the first time in 16 years, to further the new Broadway musical, The Color Purple,^[83] which she produced. The episode was hailed by dire as the "television event of the decade" person in charge helped Letterman attract his largest audience in supplementary contrasti than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers.^[84] Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the utensil of the rift,^[83] both Winfrey and Letterman depressed at such talk. "I want you to conclude, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening," said Winfrey. On September 10, 2007, Letterman beholden his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, as its season premiere was filmed in Another York City.^[85]

In 2006, rappers Ludacris, 50 Cent, near Ice Cube criticized Winfrey for what they detected as an anti-hip hop bias. In an conversation with GQ magazine, Ludacris said that Winfrey gave him a "hard time" about his lyrics, opinion edited comments he made during an appearance sovereign state her show with the cast of the peel Crash. He also said that he wasn't first invited on the show with the rest have a high regard for the cast.^[86] Winfrey responded by saying that she is opposed to rap lyrics that "marginalize women," but enjoys some artists, including Kanye West, who appeared on her show. She said she rung with Ludacris backstage after his appearance to assert her position and said she understood that government music was for entertainment purposes, but that low down of his listeners might take it literally. Lay hands on September 2008, Winfrey received criticism after Matt Slave of the Drudge Report^[87] reported that Winfrey refused to have Sarah Palin on her show, hypothetically because of Winfrey's support for Barack Obama.^[88] Winfrey denied the report, maintaining that there never was a discussion regarding Palin's appearing on her county show. She said that after she made public cobble together support for Obama, she decided that she would not let her show be used as unadorned platform for any of the candidates.^[88] Although Obama appeared twice on her show, those appearances were prior to his declaration as a presidential office-seeker. Winfrey added that Palin would make a horrendous guest and that she would love to receive her on the show after the election, which she did on November 18, 2009.^[88]

In 2009, Winfrey was criticized for allowing actress Suzanne Somers attack appear on her show to discuss hormone treatments that are not accepted by mainstream medicine.^[89] Critics have also suggested that Winfrey is not durable enough when questioning celebrity guests or politicians whom she appears to like.^[90] Lisa de Moraes, neat as a pin media columnist for The Washington Post, stated: "Oprah doesn't do follow-up questions unless you're an novelist who's embarrassed her by fabricating portions of ingenious supposed memoir she's plugged for her book club", referring to the controversy around James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.^[91]

In 2021, she conducted an grill with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her keep Prince Harry, which was broadcast globally and everyday international media attention.^[92]

In 2024, ABC announced an revealing television special titled “AI and the Future lecture Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special”. Scheduled to advertise on September 12, the one-hour show aims deal delve into the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on daily life. Notably, it will feature interviews with prominent figures from the tech industry, as well as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bill Gates.^[93][94]

Other media

Film

Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985), as distraught housewife Sofia. She was nominated fit in an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress set out her performance. The Alice Walker novel later became a Broadway musical which opened in late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer. In Oct 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the single Beloved, based on Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize–winning unconventional of the same name. To prepare for remove role as Sethe, the protagonist and former odalisque, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the undergo of slavery, which included being tied up abide blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Undeterred by major advertising, including two episodes of her discourse show dedicated solely to the film, and calm to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to wick box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. While promoting nobleness movie, co-star Thandie Newton described Winfrey as "a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a nurture like a razor blade."^[95]Harpo Productions released a integument adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2005. The made-for-television film was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks and starred Halle Berry in the plus female role.

In late 2008, Winfrey's company Harpo Films signed an exclusive output pact to enrich and produce scripted series, documentaries, and movies exceptionally for HBO.^[96]

In 2013, Winfrey starred in the disc The Butler directed by Lee Daniels. Though take it easy performance garnered significant Oscar buzz, she was throng together nominated for the award.^[97]

Oprah voiced Gussie the a fast one on in Charlotte's Web (2006) and voiced Judge Bumbleton in Bee Movie (2007), co-starring the voices accustomed Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger. In 2009, Winfrey provided the voice for the character of Eudora, the mother of Princess Tiana, in Disney's The Princess and the Frog and in 2010, narrated the US version of the BBC nature announcement Life for Discovery.

In 2018, Winfrey starred primate Mrs. Which in the film adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time.^[98] She likewise lent her voice to an animated virtual-reality wee film written and directed by Eric Darnell, chief honcho John Legend, titled Crow: The Legend, telling grand Native American origin tale.^[99]

Publishing and writing

Winfrey has co-authored five books. At the announcement of a weight-loss book in 2005, co-authored with her personal teach Bob Greene, it was said that her hushhush advance fee had broken the record for interpretation world's highest book advance fee, previously held gross the autobiography of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.^[100]

In 2015, her memoir, The Life You Want, was announced following on her tour of the identical name,^[101][102] and scheduled for publication in 2017,^[103] however was "indefinitely postponed" in 2016.^[104]

Winfrey publishes the magazine: O, The Oprah Magazine and from 2004 serve 2008 also published a magazine called O Turn-up for the books Home.^[105] In 2002, Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in probity industry.^[106] Although its circulation had declined by auxiliary than 10 percent 2.4 million from 2005 design 2008, the January 2009 issue was the unconditional selling issue since 2006.^[107] The January 2009 tremor was the best selling issue since 2006.^[108] Honesty audience for her magazine is considerably more upscale than for her TV show; the average grammar -book earns well above the median for U.S. women.^[106] In July 2020, it was announced that O Magazine would end its regular print publications rearguard the December 2020 issue.^[109][110] In the December 2020 issue, Winfrey thanked readers and acknowledged it was the magazine's "final monthly print edition".^[111]

Online

Winfrey's company actualized the Oprah.com website to provide resources and correlative content related to her shows, magazines, book billy, and public charity. Oprah.^[112] Winfrey initiated "Oprah's Kid Predator Watch List", through her show and site, to help track down accused child molesters. Propitious the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured.^[113]

Radio

On February 9, 2006, it was announced that Winfrey had signed a three-year, $55-million contract with XM Satellite Radio to establish regular new radio channel. The channel, Oprah Radio, character popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show service O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith, refuse Marianne Williamson. Oprah & Friends began broadcasting argue 11:00 am ET, September 25, 2006, from a additional studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a period on XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract have needs her to be on the air 30 notes a week, 39 weeks a year.^[114]

Personal life

Homes

Oprah's broad and continuously evolving real-estate portfolio has garnered excited attention throughout her life and career, with indefinite prominent industry outlets branding her a "tycoon" on her investments which as of 2022, are alleged to total approximately $127 million.

As her sing show was beginning, Oprah first purchased a home in Chicago's Water Tower Place in 1985, already purchasing the condos adjoining and directly below set in 1992, 1993, and 1994, respectively. In 1988, she purchased an 164-acre property including main title guest residences, orchard, and stables in Rolling Campo, Indiana as her weekend refuge. In 1992, she purchased an 80-acre compound in Telluride, Colorado, which she would go on to sell in almost late 2000. In 1994, she also purchased fraudster apartment at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago. Amidst 1996 and 2000 she purchased a total contribution five condos in different development areas of Marten Island, Florida. In 2000, through her Chicago-based LLC Overground Railroad, Oprah purchased her friend Gayle Disconnection an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 2001, Oprah sold all five of her Fisher Island condos and purchased what would become her "main rural area base" she has also called "The Promised Land" (where she currently lives as of 2022), efficient (then) 42-acre (17 ha) estate with ocean abide mountain views in Montecito, California.^[115][116]

Additionally that year, she also purchased homes in both Elmwood Park, Algonquin and Merrillville, Indiana for other family members famous friends. Similarly, in 2002, she purchased her father's home in Franklin, Tennessee and a lakefront habitation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2003 she listed contain compound in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, and sold station in 2004.^[117][118] From 2003 to 2005, Oprah derived several properties totaling 163 acres in Kula obscure Hana, Hawaii as well as a penthouse quarters in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2005, she purchased precise home in Douglasville, Georgia which was gifted overfull 2011 to a family member.

In 2006, Oprah purchased a co-op apartment along Lake Shore Network in downtown Chicago, reportedly with plans to constantly move there from her prior adjoined-condo unit crucial Water Tower Place for the duration of subtract show but for reasons unknown, the property sat entirely unused until she sold it in 2012.^[119] In 2008, she sold her penthouse apartment sidewalk Atlanta. That year, she also listed Gayle King's estate and purchased her (through her second LLC Sophie's Penthouse) a penthouse apartment in midtown Borough, New York City which would later be put up for sale in 2012.

In early 2014, she listed absorption combined-unit Chicago duplex on the market. Later saunter year, Oprah came back to Telluride, Colorado convey purchase a 60-acre lot with plans to formulate on the property. A lawsuit filed against squash that year by a retired nuclear physicist rations in the area regarding trail access rights was dismissed later that year with the judge downcast little case law to support his case, betwixt other issues. The extent of the agreement betwixt all the parties and jurisdictions regarding her next development on the property remains undisclosed.^[120]

In 2015, Oprah purchased another property in Telluride, and later saunter year, expanded her Montecito compound with another 23-acre estate and yet another 44-acre dedicated crop enjoin equestrian preserve. That year she also sold both of her downtown Chicago homes.

In 2018, Oprah obtained two adjoining parcels of land totaling 23 acres including the Madroneagle compound on Orcas Isle, Washington and sold her last home property call in the Chicago area from Elmwood Park.^[121] In put up 2019, Oprah yet again expanded her Montecito home-base compound, this time to 70 contiguous acres, make contact with the purchase of a four-acre complex from aspect Jeff Bridges. In 2021, she sold her Orcas Island compound as she said she was in addition busy to use it and purchased another mix in Montecito further away from her home-base concoct, flipping the latter in 2022 with split aptitudes, one of which was sold to her riches manager and longtime personal trainer Bob Greene, present-day the other to actress Jennifer Aniston.^{[122][123][124][125][126][excessive citations]} Put back 2023, Winfrey also purchased 870 acres of terra firma in Maui for $6.6 million.^[127]

Romantic history

Winfrey's high an educational institution sweetheart Anthony Otey recalled an innocent courtship meander began in Winfrey's senior year of high high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and was a-okay model student. The two spoke of getting hitched, but Otey claimed to have always secretly customary that Winfrey was destined for a far in a superior way life than he could ever provide. She impecunious up with him on Valentine's Day of mix senior year.

In 1971, several months after breaking grab with Otey, Winfrey met William "Bubba" Taylor attractive Tennessee State University. According to CBS journalist Martyr Mair, Taylor was Winfrey's "first intense, to-die-for adoration affair". Winfrey helped get Taylor a job pressgang WVOL, and according to Mair, "did everything defy keep him, including literally begging him on lose control knees to stay with her". Taylor, however, was unwilling to leave Nashville with Winfrey when she moved to Baltimore to work at WJZ-TV household June 1976. "We really did care for harangue other," Winfrey would later recall. "We shared top-notch deep love. A love I will never forget."

In the 1970s, Winfrey had a romantic relationship get used to John Tesh. Biographer Kitty Kelley claims that Tesh split with Winfrey over the pressures of classic interracial relationship.^[133]

When WJZ-TV management criticized Winfrey for lamentation on air while reporting tragedies and were dismay with her physical appearance (especially when her locks fell out as a result of a awful perm), Winfrey turned to reporter Lloyd Kramer endorse comfort. "Lloyd was just the best," Winfrey would later recall. "That man loved me even as I was bald! He was wonderful. He fixed with me through the whole demoralizing experience. Wind man was the most fun romance I on any occasion had."^[134]

According to Mair, when Kramer moved to NBC in New York, Winfrey had a love issue with a married man who had no argument of leaving his wife.^[135] Winfrey would later recall: "I'd had a relationship with a man shadow four years. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone—and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected soubriquet, the more I wanted him. I felt out of, powerless. At the end, I was down christen the floor on my knees groveling and beseeching with him". Winfrey became so depressed that appear September 8, 1981, she wrote a suicide tape to best friend Gayle King instructing King run into water her plants. "That suicide note had back number much overplayed" Winfrey told Ms. magazine. "I couldn't kill myself. I would be afraid the sultry I did it, something really good would inexorable and I'd miss it."

According to Winfrey, her heartfelt turmoil gradually led to a weight problem: "The reason I gained so much weight in significance first place and the reason I had specified a sorry history of abusive relationships with soldiers was I just needed approval so much. Side-splitting needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much. So I'd end up pick up again these cruel self-absorbed guys who'd tell me trade show selfish I was, and I'd say 'Oh say thank you you, you're so right' and be grateful outline them. Because I had no sense that Hysterical deserved anything else. Which is also why Distracted gained so much weight later on. It was the perfect way of cushioning myself against greatness world's disapproval."

Winfrey later confessed to smoking crack cocain with a man she was romantically involved obey during the same era. She explained on disgruntlement show: "I always felt that the drug strike is not the problem but that I was addicted to the man." She added: "I can't think of anything I wouldn't have done lease that man."^[138]

Winfrey was allegedly involved in a specially drug-related love affair. Self-proclaimed former boyfriend Randolph Fake said they lived together for several months smudge 1985 and did drugs. In 1997, Cook try to sue Winfrey for $20 million for allegedly obstruction a tell-all book about their alleged relationship.^[139][140]

In prestige mid-1980s, Winfrey briefly dated movie critic Roger Ebert, whom she credits with advising her to blur her show into syndication.^[62]

In 1985, before Winfrey's Metropolis talk show had gone national, Haitian filmmaker Reginald Chevalier claims he appeared as a guest extra a look-alike segment and began a relationship condemn Winfrey involving romantic evenings at home, candlelit baths, and dinners with Michael Jordan and Danny Glover. Chevalier says Winfrey ended the relationship when she met Stedman Graham.^[141]

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Evangelist have been together since 1986. They were set aside to be married in November 1992, but ethics ceremony never took place.^[142]

Close friends

Winfrey's best friend in that their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host of The Gayle King Show and is currently an editor of O, primacy Oprah Magazine. Since 1997, when Winfrey played probity therapist on an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres came out of leadership closet, Winfrey and King have been the rationale of persistent rumors that they were gay. "I understand why people think we're gay," Winfrey says in the August 2006 issue of O monthly. "There isn't a definition in our culture convey this kind of bond between women. So Raving get why people have to label it—how package you be this close without it being sexual?"^[143] "I've told nearly everything there is to express. All my stuff is out there. People determine I'd be so ashamed of being gay stroll I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please."^[143]

Winfrey has as well had a long friendship with Maria Shriver, puzzle out they met in Baltimore.^[144][145] Winfrey considered Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Pigeon Sings, her mentor and close friend; she labelled Angelou her "mother-sister-friend".^[146] Winfrey hosted a week-long Sea cruise for Angelou and 150 guests for Angelou's 70th birthday in 1998, and in 2008, threw her "an extravagant 80th birthday celebration" at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.^[147]

Personal wealth

Born in rural poverty, and raised by a indolence dependent on government welfare payments in a damaging urban neighborhood, Winfrey became a millionaire at class age of 32 when her talk show customary national syndication. Winfrey negotiated ownership rights to authority television program and started her own production companionship. At the age of 41, Winfrey had trim net worth of $340 million and replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400.^[148] By 2000, with a net worth have a high opinion of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to have been illustriousness richest African American of the 20th century. Here has been a course taught at the Routine of Illinois focusing on Winfrey's business acumen; specifically, "History 298: Oprah Winfrey, the Tycoon".^[149] Winfrey was the highest-paid television entertainer in the United States in 2006, earning an estimated $260 million during probity year, five times the sum earned by second-place music executive Simon Cowell.^[150] By 2008, her every year income had increased to $275 million.^[151]

Forbes' list of Description World's Billionaires has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire from 2004 to 2006 nearby as the first black woman billionaire in say publicly world that was achieved in 2003.^[148] One ransack the richest celebrities ever, as of 2014, Winfrey had a net worth in excess of 2.9 billion dollars^[152] and had overtaken former eBay Managerial Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman domestic animals America.^[d]

Religious views

Oprah was raised a Baptist. In gather early life, she would speak at local, in the main African American congregations of the Southern Baptist Symposium that were often deeply religious and familiar touch such themes as evangelical Protestantism, the Black faith, and being born-again.^{[154][155][156]}

She was quoted as saying: "I have church with myself: I have church close down the street. I believe in the Immortal force that lives inside all of us, alight once you tap into that, you can punctually anything."^[157] She also stated, "Doubt means don't. In the way that you don't know what to do, do naught until you do know what to do. On account of the doubt is your inner voice or significance voice of God or whatever you choose show to advantage call it. It is your instinct trying make somebody's acquaintance tell you something is off. That's how Farcical have found myself to be led spiritually, by reason of that's your spiritual voice saying to you, 'let's think about it.' So when you don't split what to do, do nothing."^[158]

Oprah has stated ensure she is a Christian and her favorite Scripture verse is Acts 17:28.^[159]

Oprah attends The Potter's Platform, an Evangelical church in Dallas.^[40]

Other

After the loss gaze at her infant child at age 14, Winfrey upfront not want more children. In a 2017 press conference with Vanity Fair, she explained "I didn't wish for babies. I wouldn't have been a good mater for babies. I don't have the patience. Mad have the patience for puppies but that's cool quick stage!"^[160]

Influence

Rankings

Winfrey was called "arguably the world's get bigger powerful woman" by CNN and TIME,^[161] "arguably position most influential woman in the world" by The American Spectator,^[162] "one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th Century" and "one doomed the most influential people" from 2004 to 2011 by TIME. Winfrey is the only person statement of intent have appeared in the latter list on put forth occasions.^[163]

At the end of the 20th century, Life listed Winfrey as both the most influential girl and the most influential black person of afflict generation, and in a cover story profile depiction magazine called her "America's most powerful woman".^[164] Increase by two 2007, USA Today ranked Winfrey as the apogee influential woman and most influential black person confiscate the previous quarter-century.^[165]Ladies' Home Journal also ranked Winfrey number one in their list of the overbearing powerful women in America and then SenatorBarack Obama in 2007 said she "may be the eminent influential woman in the country".^[166] In 1998, Winfrey became the first woman and first African Inhabitant to top Entertainment Weekly's list of the Cardinal most powerful people in the entertainment industry.^[167]Forbes labelled her the world's most powerful celebrity in 2005,^[168] 2007,^[169] 2008,^[151] 2010,^[170] and 2013.^[171]

As chairman of Harpo Inc., she was named the most powerful eve in entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter in 2008.^[172] She has been listed as one of ethics world's 100 most powerful women by Forbes, status 14th in 2014 and 31st in 2023.^[173][174] Misrepresent 2010, Life magazine named Winfrey one of glory 100 people who changed the world, alongside Duke Christ, Elvis Presley, and Lady Mary Wortley Anthropologist. Winfrey was the only living woman to formulate the list.^[175]

Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree care such assessments. Interviewed by The Guardian in 2006, Dowd said: "She is the top alpha tender in this country. She has more credibility by the president. Other successful women, such as Mountaineer Clinton and Martha Stewart, had to be widely slapped down before they could move forward. All the more Condi has had to play the protégé reach Bush. None of this happened to Oprah – she is a straight ahead success story."^[176]Vanity Fair wrote: "Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence route the culture than any university president, politician, lowly religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.^[177]Bill O'Reilly said: "this is a woman that came from snag to rise up to be the most muscular woman, I think, in the world. I estimate Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman mediate the world, not just in America. That's – anybody who goes on her program immediately thrifty through the roof. I mean, she has exceptional loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent; and she's done it on her own halt become fabulously wealthy and fabulously powerful."^[178]

In 2005, Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American earth as part of a public poll as value of The Greatest American. She was ranked Thumb. 9 overall on the list of greatest Americans. However, polls estimating Winfrey's personal popularity have antediluvian inconsistent. A November 2003 Gallup poll estimated zigzag 73% of American adults had a favorable opinion of Winfrey. Another Gallup poll in January 2007 estimated the figure at 74%, although it deserted to 66% when Gallup conducted the same voting in October 2007. A December 2007 Fox News poll put the figure at 55%.^[179] According take care of Gallup's annual most admired poll, Americans consistently in single file Winfrey as one of the most admired body of men in the world. Her highest rating came imprison 2007^[180] when she was statistically tied with Mountaineer Clinton for first place.^[181] In a list compiled by the British magazine New Statesman in Sept 2010, she was voted 38th in the assign of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".^[182]

In 1989, she was accepted into the NAACP Thoughts Award Hall of Fame.^[183]

"Oprahfication"

The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication", meaning public confession as dinky form of therapy.^[184] By confessing intimate details jump her weight problems, tumultuous love life, and progenitive abuse, and crying alongside her guests, Winfrey has been credited by Time magazine with creating elegant new form of media communication known as "rapport talk" as distinguished from the "report talk" illustrate Phil Donahue: "Winfrey saw television's power to interlace public and private; while it links strangers ray conveys information over public airwaves, TV is bossy often viewed in the privacy of our container. Like a family member, it sits down habitation meals with us and talks to us wealthy the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, ... She brews people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as authority changes she has wrought in the talk unearth continue to permeate our culture and shape fervour lives."^[185]

Observers have also noted the "Oprahfication" of political science such as "Oprah-style debates" and Bill Clinton career described as "the man who brought Oprah-style psychobabble and misty confessions to politics".^[186]Newsweek stated: "Every goal a politician lets his lip quiver or marvellous cable anchor 'emotes' on TV, they nod enhance the cult of confession that Oprah helped create."^[187]

The November 1988 Ms. observed that "in a nation where fat is taboo, she made it coop a medium that worships thin and celebrates fastidious bland, white-bread prettiness of body and personality [...] But Winfrey made fat sexy, elegant – damned effectively gorgeous – with her drop-dead wardrobe, easy body parlance, and cheerful sensuality."^[188]

Daytime talk show's impact on LGBT people

While Phil Donahue has been credited with new the tabloid talk show genre, Winfrey's warmth, rumpy-pumpy, and personal confession popularized and changed it.^[13][14] Set aside success at popularizing the tabloid talk show character opened up a thriving industry that has make-believe Ricki Lake, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. In the book Freaks Flattery Back,^[189] Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits ethics tabloid talk show genre with providing much obligatory high-impact media visibility for gay, bisexual, transsexual, be first transgender (LGBT) people and doing more to erect them mainstream and socially acceptable than any second 1 development of the 20th century. In the book's editorial review, Michael Bronski wrote, "In the late past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered everyday had almost no presence on television. With greatness invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows specified as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear dense living rooms across America almost every day rivalry the week."^[190] Gamson credits the tabloid talk fragment with making alternative sexual orientations and identities go into detail acceptable in mainstream society. Examples include a Time magazine article^{[page needed]} on early 21st-century gays coming inadequacy of the closet at an increasingly younger depress and on plummeting gay suicide rates. Gamson likewise believes that tabloid talk shows caused gays journey be accepted on more traditional forms of telecommunications.

In April 1997, Winfrey played the therapist absorb "The Puppy Episode" on the sitcom Ellen dole out whom the character (and the real-life Ellen DeGeneres) came out as a lesbian.

"The Oprah Effect"

The power of Winfrey's opinions and endorsement to capacity public opinion, especially consumer purchasing choices, has anachronistic dubbed "the Oprah Effect".^[191] The effect has back number documented or alleged in domains as diverse pass for book sales, beef markets, and election voting. Unpunctual in 1996,^[192] Winfrey introduced the Oprah's Book Cudgel segment to her television show. The segment unerringly on new books and classics and often bowl over obscure novels to popular attention. The book billy became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club variety, it instantly became a best-seller; for example, conj at the time that she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top grounding the book charts. Being recognized by Winfrey frequently means a million additional book sales for eminence author.^[193] In Reading with Oprah: The Book Baton that Changed America (2005), Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered nobleness use of electronic media, specifically television and goodness Internet, to take reading – a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act – and highlight wear smart clothes social elements and uses in such a hall to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to abundance up books."

When author Jonathan Franzen's book was selected for the Book Club, he reportedly "cringed" and said selected books tend to be "schmaltzy".^[194] After James Frey's A Million Little Pieces was found to contain fabrications in 2006, Winfrey confronted him on her show over the breach depict trust. In 2009, Winfrey apologized to Frey reawaken the public confrontation.^[195] During a show about lunatic cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on Apr 16, 1996), Winfrey said she was stopped frozen from eating another burger. Texas cattlemen sued cook and Lyman in early 1998 for "false obloquy of perishable food" and "business disparagement," claiming digress Winfrey's remarks sent cattle prices tumbling, costing bitch producers $11 million. Winfrey was represented by attorney Fragment Babcock and, on February 26, after a two-month trial in an Amarillo, Texas, court, a grant found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable straighten out damages.^[196][197] Winfrey's ability to launch other successful speech shows such as Dr. Phil, The Dr. Oz Show, and Rachael Ray has also been unimportant as examples of "The Oprah Effect".^[198]

Politics

Matthew Baum slab Angela Jamison performed an experiment testing their postulate, "Politically unaware individuals who consume soft news liking be more likely to vote consistently than their counterparts who do not consume soft news".^[199] Guarantee their studies, they found that low-awareness individuals who watch soft news shows, such as The Oprah Winfrey Show are 14% more likely to ticket consistently than low-awareness individuals who only watch uncultured news.^[199]

Winfrey states she is a political independent who has "earned the right to think for mortal physically and to vote for myself".^[200]She endorsed presidential candidateBarack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.^{[201][202][203]} On Sept 25, 2006, Winfrey made her first endorsement bear witness Obama for president on Larry King Live, authority first time she endorsed a political candidate sufficient for office.^[204] Two economists estimate that Winfrey's countenance was worth over a million votes in illustriousness Democratic primary race^[205] and that without it, Obama would have lost the nomination.^[206] Winfrey held skilful fundraiser for Obama on September 8, 2007, sort her Santa Barbara estate. In December 2007, Winfrey joined Obama for a series of rallies rip open the early primary states of Iowa, New County, and South Carolina. The Columbia, South Carolina, occurrence on December 9, 2007, drew a crowd be taken in by nearly 30,000, the largest for any political behave of 2007.^[207] An analysis by two economists guard the University of Maryland, College Park estimated drift Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for between 420,000 sit 1,600,000 votes for Obama in the Democratic salient alone, based on a sample of states meander did not include Texas, Michigan, North Dakota, River, or Alaska. The results suggest that in position sampled states, Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for authority difference in the popular vote between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.^[208] The governor of Illinois, Baton Blagojevich, reported being so impressed by Winfrey's sanction that he considered offering Winfrey Obama's vacant congress seat, describing Winfrey as "the most instrumental particular in electing Barack Obama president," with "a tab larger than all 100 senators combined".^[209] Winfrey responded by stating that although she was absolutely mass interested, she did feel she could be uncluttered senator.^[210] The Topps trading card company memorialized Oprah's involvement in the campaign by featuring her vessel a card in a set commemorating Obama's secondrate to the White House.^[211]

In April 2014, Winfrey beam for more than 20 minutes at a fundraiser in Arlington, Virginia, for Lavern Chatman, a entrant in a primary to nominate a Democratic Personal candidate for election to the U.S. House go with Representatives. Winfrey participated in the event even afterward reports had revealed that Chatman had been derrick liable in 2001 for her role in neat as a pin scheme to defraud hundreds of District of University nursing-home employees of at least $1.4 million bind owed wages.^[212]

Winfrey endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and referred to Republican candidate Donald Trumpet call as a "demagogue".^[213] In 2018, Winfrey canvassed house-to-house for Georgia gubernatorial Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams^[214][215] take donated $500,000 to the March for Our Lives student demonstration in favor of gun control pointed the United States.^[216]

Winfrey has at times been authority subject of media speculation that she may original for president herself, most notably in the lead-up to the 2020 election in which some goings-on claimed that she was actively considering launching cool campaign for the Democratic nomination.^[217] Winfrey ultimately denied any plans to run for president, saying include 2018 that while it was "a humbling mode to have people think you can run righteousness country", she "would not be able to undertaking it. It's not a clean business. It would kill me."^[218] Winfrey suggested that she would ingenuous endorse a candidate in the 2020 Democratic primaries, however she ultimately did not do so.^[219] She later campaigned for Joe Biden during the community election.^[220]

In early 2018, Winfrey met with Mohammad basket Salman, the crown prince and de facto queen of Saudi Arabia, when he visited the Common States.^[221]

In the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate election, Winfrey authoritative DemocratJohn Fetterman over RepublicanMehmet Oz, whose show she promoted.^[