BIOGRAPHY:

Oprah was born on January 29, 1954 in the small town of Kosciasco, Mississippi, her mother and father were not married. The father served in the army and only found out that he had a daughter when she was born. The girl was given the biblical name Orpah, but the family constantly confused the letters “p” and “p” – so Orpah became Oprah. Shortly after the birth, Vernita Lee’s mother, who worked as a maid, left Oprah with her grandmother Hattie Mae and moved to another state.

On her grandmother’s farm, Oprah helped run the farm, caring for cows, pigs and chickens. Since she did not have her own room, she slept with her grandmother in the same bed. According to her memoirs, she often spent nights awake in fear that her grandfather, who was nicknamed Earlless Li, would kill them at night. Grandma could sometimes flog Oprah with rods as a form of education. “I just hope you find nice white guys who will treat you well,” she told her granddaughter. She believed that she was destined for a place as a dark-skinned servant.

Oprah’s grandmother was very religious and spent almost all her free time in church. She took her granddaughter with her. The future star was already reading at the age of two, and then she made her first public appearance – she read an Easter sermon. Afterwards, she spoke in churches more than once, and the locals even called her a preacher. Only in 1960, at the age of six, did the girl go to her mother. To a house that brought her a lot of misfortune.

In 1963, nine-year-old Oprah was raped by her cousin. She later recalled that she did not understand what had happened, and her brother asked her not to tell anyone about it, bribing her with ice cream and a trip to the zoo.

Over the next five years, Oprah was repeatedly harassed by other male relatives and her mother’s boyfriends, which only ended when she moved in with her father, Vernon Winfrey (who worked first as a miner and then as a hairdresser). 14-year-old Oprah left her mother’s house pregnant. The child died a few days after birth; Oprah had no more children.

Despite her difficult childhood, Oprah studied well at school, attended the drama club, served on the student council, and even represented the school in the White House – although she could hardly have imagined that in the future she would become a confidant of President Barack Obama. In 1971, Oprah attended a White House conference on youth issues, after which she was interviewed by a small Nashville radio station. Representatives from a radio station run by African Americans noticed Oprah and asked her to represent the station in the Miss Fire Safety beauty pageant. Oprah agreed. She was the only black person in the competition and thought she had no chance, but the judges liked her answers. When asked how she sees her career, Oprah said that she would like to connect her life with broadcast journalism. Soon the very station she represented invited Oprah to read the news on the weekends.

Rising star:

After school, Oprah entered the University of Tennessee on a scholarship, studying public speaking and foreign languages. Already at the university, she began working at another radio station, and in 1973, at the age of 19, she entered television as a reporter and co-host, becoming not only the first woman, but also the first black person in this profession. Oprah did not graduate from university: she chose a career and moved to Baltimore to start working on a local television station on the evening news. Viewers were outraged that a new co-host appeared on the program, and an African-American one at that. The producers demanded that Oprah at least straighten her hair, but due to unsuccessful procedures, her hair simply fell out.

One of the channel’s managers found another job for Oprah – in 1978, she became a co-host of a morning talk show. Winfrey herself was uncomfortable working as a reporter: “I had to cover people’s tragedies and pretend I didn’t feel anything.” On the talk show, Oprah realized that this was the business she wanted to do. “The talk show freed me. I spoke from my heart, it was like coming home,” Oprah said. The program with her participation in Baltimore was more popular than the Phil Donahue show – the most famous in America at that time.

Six years later, Oprah got tired, decided to change jobs and moved to Chicago. “Everyone except my best friend told me that I couldn’t do it, that Chicago was a racist city,” Oprah recalled. Within months, the program she hosted, AM Chicago, became the most popular talk show on the air. During those same years, she managed to star in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple and even received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

With a starting salary of $225,000, Oprah considered herself incredibly rich. The program’s ratings grew, and in 1986 it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. So at 32, Oprah got her own show and her first million. And in 1987, she received the first of 18 Emmy statuettes for daytime broadcasting.

The Oprah Winfrey Show:

“The Oprah Winfrey Show” was broadcast on several US channels for 25 years and was recognized as the most successful in the history of American television. From 1986 to 2011, more than 4,500 episodes were released. During this time, Oprah interviewed 37,000 people. In Oprah’s studio, Tom Cruise jumped on the sofa, Meghan Markle shared revelations about life in the British royal family, Rihanna spoke about abuse from her ex-partner Chris Brown, Whitney Houston about drug addiction, and JK Rowling about depression. The episode with the presenter’s close friend Michael Jackson in 1993 became a cult favorite: 62 million people watched it in the USA alone. During the conversation, the singer spoke about the diagnosis of vitiligo, nose surgery and abuse from his father. As of 2024, the episode remains the most-watched television interview in American history.

When a quarter of a century later, in 2019, the documentary “Leaving Neverland” was released about children who were groomed and molested by Michael Jackson, Oprah interviewed its creators and heroes. “I know people all over the world will be making noise and arguing whether Michael Jackson did these things or whether these two are lying. But for me, this moment goes beyond the topic of Michael Jackson,” Winfrey said, calling violence “an evil that threatens humanity.”

Despite the breakthrough that Oprah managed to make, attitudes towards women in the profession remained biased: “I built this show around me and the producers: we were young 30-year-old women trying to find our way. I was making a lot of money, and my producers were still on the same salary, so I asked my boss to raise it [and them], to which he replied: “Why? It’s just a bunch of girls, why do they need money?” I said that either I would leave or they would get paid. And they got paid.”

In 1990, Oprah invested $20 million to create Harpo Productions, which took up an entire city block, giving her full control of her show. Soon the studio began producing not only talk shows, but also television and feature films. By 1995, Oprah’s net worth was estimated at $340 million—she made it onto Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans, becoming the first black woman to do so. In 2003, Oprah became a billionaire. The success of the Oprah show can be explained by the fact that it became a kind of therapy for television viewers: Oprah discussed with her guests, among whom were ordinary viewers, everything that can worry everyone, from the perception of their body to addictions. “I have always done my best to talk about how we experience shame, how we love, how we get angry, how we fail, how we recover, how we persevere and how we overcome,” Oprah shared. Oprah’s show became especially “healing” for viewers in September 2001, when terrorists in the United States flew planes into the World Trade Center towers. The TV presenter tried to help people cope with the tragedy during daytime broadcasts. She herself explained the success of the show this way: “Everyone just wants to know that they were heard, seen and that their words were meaningful.”

Oprah and scandals:

In 2005, the TV presenter invited writer James Frey, who wrote memoirs about overcoming alcohol and drug addiction, to her show. Oprah recommended the book to her book club, and her recommendation increased sales: over the next two months, the book sold more than 2 million copies. However, journalists later learned that Frey had made up most of the stories.

Another scandal involved supporting a doctor whose treatments sometimes had no scientific basis: Oprah dubbed doctor Mehmet Oz “America’s Doctor” but later distanced herself from him. Winfrey herself resorted to the help of a certain “Secret” system – according to it, positive thoughts can solve emotional, financial and physical problems. In 2007, a woman with breast cancer told Oprah that she inspired her to give up medications and surgery. Although the TV presenter tried to convince the woman to undergo at least partial surgery, she refused and eventually died.

Oprah’s connections with Harvey Weinstein also looked dubious to the public. In 2018, the producer was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexualized violence. 80 women came forward with accusations against him. Among them was actress Kadian Noble, who said Weinstein seduced her by introducing her to Winfrey and Naomi Campbell, whom she admired. The high-profile case stems from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls in South Africa, which the presenter founded near Johannesburg in 2003, with the support of Nelson Mandela. At first, the $40 million complex was considered too luxurious, and just six months after the opening, the head of the hostel was arrested on charges of sexualized violence against at least six students. Oprah said that after the news of what happened, she cried and accused the school management of covering up the crime. True, two years later the charges against the head of the hostel were dropped. Life after the show
After the closure of her main brainchild, The Oprah Winfrey Show, in 2011, the TV presenter launched her own cable channel, OWN, of which she owns 25%. Oprah also receives income from a 7% stake in the company that develops individual weight loss programs Weight Watchers and royalties from the sale of O and The Oprah Magazine of the publishing conglomerate Hearst. Today, Oprah’s net worth is estimated at $2.8 billion.

As part of her show, she launched a television book club back in 1996. The TV presenter chose a book that she liked, discussed it in the studio with readers, and invited the author. From the very first release, every book chosen by Oprah became a bestseller, and just a year after the creation of the book club, Newsweek named Oprah the most influential person in the book industry. The club still exists today.

During her career, she donated more than $400 million to education, and she allocated more than $100 million to the development of the already mentioned Leadership Academy. In 1998, the TV presenter founded the Oprah’s Angels Network charity foundation, which over 12 years of operation (the foundation stopped accepting donations in 2010) raised $80 million. Of this, $10 million went to help victims of the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with In this case, Oprah added another $10 million from her funds to this amount. Angel Network also helped build 60 schools in 13 countries, purchasing books and uniforms for them. Now the work of the network is carried out by the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation.

In 2012, she received a special Oscar – the Gene Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which the American Film Academy awards “for outstanding contributions to the cause of humanism.” And in 2015 she was nominated again, but as a producer in the Best Film category.

Oprah’s influence in American society is so great that in 2018, information began to spread on social networks that she would run for president, but the TV presenter denied everything. Oprah made a political gesture when she supported Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries: while many African Americans agreed with her, women thought she should have supported Hillary Clinton. Oprah’s ratings began to decline, but recovered after Obama’s victory. Her support brought the future president more than 1 million votes.

In 2022, Time magazine recognized Oprah as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for the 10th time.

Books:

At the beginning of 2017, Oprah Winfrey released her first personal work, the cookbook Food, Health and Happiness: Top-notch Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life. It was originally planned that Oprah would write her own biography and tell her success story, but the TV presenter later changed the concept.

Next came the book “Sunday Wisdom: Life-Changing Insights.” The collection includes conversations between Winfrey and prominent people of our time.

Condition assessment:

Oprah Winfrey became one of the first black female billionaires, and as of 2021, her net worth was estimated at $2.6 billion—more than any other woman in show business. The television journalist owns a film studio, a magazine, the Oprah.com web resource, a radio network, and a private cable channel.

Personal life:

Oprah Winfrey lives with Stedman Graham. They have no children – after the pregnancy that happened in her youth, the TV presenter could no longer become a mother. Oprah is not going to formalize the relationship, and her common-law husband fully supports her chosen one in this. Too many responsibilities come with marriage, a couple who has lasted more than 30 years is sure.

The media published a sensation about Oprah Winfrey’s “secret son” – Calvin Mitchell. But the TV presenter dispelled the rumors and said that in the 90s she helped Calvin and his mother move into a normal apartment, find a job, and got the boy into a private school.

Interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle:

The TV presenter’s interview with Prince Harry and his wife in March 2021 caused resonance. CBS paid Winfrey’s production company Harpo Productions between $7 million and $9 million for the broadcast rights, but the couple’s officials said they received no performance fees.

The number of viewers at the time the interview aired was over 17.1 million people, which was 3 times the usual audience for the Oprah show. A Conversation with Former Royals Became the Most Viewed TV Show in Google Trends History. The special was also nominated for an Emmy and a Television Critics Award.

From the conversation between Prince Harry and Meghan, viewers learned that the couple’s real wedding took place 3 days before the ceremony shown. The young people wanted this important event in their lives to belong only to the two of them. After the birth of their son Archie, the royal family announced that the boy would never receive the corresponding title and would not be provided with security. His skin color was also allegedly questioned by high-ranking relatives before his birth.

The young American woman was on the verge of a breakdown due to numerous experiences, but at the insistence of her family, she was not provided with psychological help. At a certain point, Harry realized that his wife was facing the same thing that his mother experienced at one time.

In 2020, the family announced they would step back from their palace duties. Meghan and Harry retained only the title of Duke of Sussex. They moved to California, where they received protection from producer Tyler Perry. Initially, the funds left by Princess Diana to her sons as an inheritance provided great help. The couple signed a contract with Netflix and Spotify, and later purchased a house in Montecito.

The interview led to division in society. There were statements that the institution of the monarchy had already exhausted itself. But the majority of British residents supported the royal family. The TV presenter herself decided to delete the entry from her blog.

Movies:

In 1985, Oprah was offered to star in the film “The Color Purple,” another name for the film is “The Color Purple.” For her supporting role, the actress was nominated for two prestigious awards: Golden Globe and Oscar. The following year, in the film “Native Son,” she played the mother of the main character. Then there were several more series, but the project that made her the richest woman was the talk show “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

In 2016, Winfrey’s filmography was replenished with two more films, which were broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network. In the drama television series Greenleaf, Oprah produced and played the role of Mavis MacReady. The same year, the series “Queen of the Sugar Plantations” was released.

In 2017, the celebrity portrayed Mrs. That is in a family fantasy based on the book “A Crack in Time” by American writer Madeleine L’Engle.