Oprah childhood biography

She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage years and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, [ 12 ] she launched her own production company.

Credited with creating a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, [ 13 ] Winfrey popularized and revolutionized [ 13 ] [ 14 ] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. 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 become a benefactor to others.

In , she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Winfrey was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Orpah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, ; her first name was spelled Orpah on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth , but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.

Winfrey's parents never married. After Winfrey's birth, her mother traveled north, and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae Presley Lee April 15, — February 27, Her grandmother was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which other children made fun of her.

When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother was reportedly abusive. At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, largely as a result of the long hours she worked as a maid. Winfrey has stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first announced on a episode of her TV show regarding sexual abuse.

Upon transferring, she said she was continually reminded of her poverty as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families. She began to rebel and steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers. Vernon was strict but encouraging, and made her education a priority.

Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School , placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. He saved me. He simply knew what he wanted and expected. He would take nothing less'". Winfrey's first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.

However, she did not deliver her final paper and receive her degree until , by which time she was a successful television personality. Winfrey's career in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property.

Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself". In , she was removed as co-anchor and worked in lower profile positions at the station. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars. The first episode aired on January 2, Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest-rated talk show in Chicago.

The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies. The first episode was broadcast nationwide on September 8, Their much-publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny. According to Time magazine in August Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV.

In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience.

It is the talk show as a group therapy session. TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said: "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy, and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular. In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show , the program was classified as a tabloid talk show.

In the mids, Winfrey began to host shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics , spirituality, and meditation. She interviewed celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse, and hosted televised giveaways. Common targets of this criticism include Dr. Oz 's promotion of various "miracle pills" especially those aimed at weight loss , [ 70 ] Dr.

Phil , Jenny McCarthy 's unfounded assertions about vaccines, and Suzanne Somers 's promotion of bioidenticals. For example, there were calls for her to denounce Dr. Oz in reaction to his comments about coronavirus and his promotion of a poorly vetted drug as a cure. In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place and its short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place.

Phil , Rachael Ray , The Dr. Oz Show and many others. It was scheduled to launch in but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, In January , CBS announced that Winfrey would join 60 Minutes as a special contributor on the Sunday evening news magazine program starting in September A third show, The Oprah Conversation debuted on July 30, , with Winfrey "[continuing] to explore impactful and relevant topics with fascinating thought leaders from all over the world".

In , Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview called, Michael Jackson Talks The episode was hailed by some as the "television event of the decade" and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: In , rappers Ludacris , 50 Cent , and Ice Cube criticized Winfrey for what they perceived as an anti- hip hop bias.

In an interview with GQ magazine, Ludacris said that Winfrey gave him a "hard time" about his lyrics, and edited comments he made during an appearance on her show with the cast of the film Crash. He also said that he wasn't initially invited on the show with the rest of the cast. She said she spoke with Ludacris backstage after his appearance to explain her position and said she understood that his music was for entertainment purposes, but that some of his listeners might take it literally.

She said that after she made public her support for Obama, she decided that she would not let her show be used as a platform for any of the candidates. Winfrey added that Palin would make a fantastic guest and that she would love to have her on the show after the election, which she did on November 18, In , Winfrey was criticized for allowing actress Suzanne Somers to appear on her show to discuss hormone treatments that are not accepted by mainstream medicine.

In , she conducted an interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex , and her husband Prince Harry , which was broadcast globally and received international media attention. Scheduled to air on September 12, the one-hour show aims to delve into the impact of artificial intelligence AI on daily life. The Alice Walker novel later became a Broadway musical which opened in late , with Winfrey credited as a producer.

In October , Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved , based on Toni Morrison 's Pulitzer Prize —winning novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods.

While promoting the 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 mind like a razor blade. The made-for-television film was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role. In late , Winfrey's company Harpo Films signed an exclusive output pact to develop and produce scripted series, documentaries, and movies exclusively for HBO.

Though her performance garnered significant Oscar buzz, she was not nominated for the award. In , Winfrey starred as Mrs. Winfrey has co-authored five books. At the announcement of a weight-loss book in , co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene, it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by the autobiography of former U.

President Bill Clinton. In , her memoir, The Life You Want , was announced following on her tour of the same name, [ ] [ ] and scheduled for publication in , [ ] but was "indefinitely postponed" in Winfrey's company created the Oprah. Within the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured. Mehmet Oz , Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith, and Marianne Williamson.

The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week on XM Radio Channel Winfrey's contract requires her to be on the air 30 minutes a week, 39 weeks a year. As her talk show was beginning, Oprah first purchased a condominium in Chicago's Water Tower Place in , before purchasing the condos adjoining and directly below it in , , and , respectively.

In , she purchased an acre property including main and guest residences, orchard, and stables in Rolling Prairie, Indiana as her weekend refuge. In , she purchased an acre compound in Telluride, Colorado , which she would go on to sell in approximately late In , she also purchased an apartment at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago. Between and she purchased a total of five condos in different development areas of Fisher Island, Florida.

In , Oprah sold all five of her Fisher Island condos and purchased what would become her "main home base" she has also called "The Promised Land" where she currently lives as of , a then acre 17 ha estate with ocean and mountain views in Montecito, California. Additionally that year, she also purchased homes in both Elmwood Park, Illinois and Merrillville, Indiana for other family members and friends.

Similarly, in , she purchased her father's home in Franklin, Tennessee and a lakefront condo in Milwaukee , Wisconsin. In she listed her compound in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, and sold it in In , she purchased a home in Douglasville, Georgia which was gifted in to a family member. In , Oprah purchased a co-op apartment along Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago, reportedly with plans to permanently move there from her prior adjoined-condo unit in Water Tower Place for the duration of her show but for reasons unknown, the property sat entirely unused until she sold it in In early , she listed her combined-unit Chicago duplex on the market.

Later that year, Oprah came back to Telluride, Colorado to purchase a acre lot with plans to build on the property. A lawsuit filed against her that year by a retired nuclear physicist living in the area regarding trail access rights was dismissed later that year with the judge citing little case law to support his case, among other issues.

The extent of the agreement between all the parties and jurisdictions regarding her subsequent development on the property remains undisclosed. In , Oprah purchased another property in Telluride, and later that year, expanded her Montecito compound with another acre estate and yet another acre dedicated crop and equestrian preserve.

That year she also sold both of her downtown Chicago homes. In , Oprah obtained two adjoining parcels of land totaling 23 acres including the Madroneagle compound on Orcas Island , Washington and sold her last home property in the Chicago area from Elmwood Park. In , she sold her Orcas Island compound as she said she was too busy to use it and purchased another compound in Montecito further away from her home-base compound, flipping the latter in with split properties, one of which was sold to her property manager and longtime personal trainer Bob Greene, and the other to actress Jennifer Aniston.

Winfrey's high school sweetheart Anthony Otey recalled an innocent courtship that began in Winfrey's senior year of high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and was a model student. Winfrey helped get Taylor a job at WVOL, and according to Mair, "did everything to keep him, including literally begging him on her knees to stay with her".

A love I will never forget. In the s, Winfrey had a romantic relationship with John Tesh. Biographer Kitty Kelley claims that Tesh split with Winfrey over the pressures of an interracial relationship. When WJZ-TV management criticized Winfrey for crying on air while reporting tragedies and were unhappy with her physical appearance especially when her hair fell out as a result of a bad perm , Winfrey turned to reporter Lloyd Kramer for comfort.

He was wonderful. He stuck with me through the whole demoralizing experience. That man was the most fun romance I ever had. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone—and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end, I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him".

I would be afraid the minute I did it, something really good would happen and I'd miss it. According to Winfrey, her emotional turmoil gradually led to a weight problem: "The reason I gained so much weight in the first place and the reason I had such a sorry history of abusive relationships with men was I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much.

So I'd end up with these cruel self-absorbed guys who'd tell me how selfish I was, and I'd say 'Oh thank you, you're so right' and be grateful to them. Because I had no sense that I deserved anything else. Which is also why I gained so much weight later on. It was the perfect way of cushioning myself against the world's disapproval. Winfrey later confessed to smoking crack cocaine with a man she was romantically involved with during the same era.

She explained on her show: "I always felt that the drug itself is not the problem but that I was addicted to the man. Winfrey was allegedly involved in a second drug-related love affair. Self-proclaimed former boyfriend Randolph Cook said they lived together for several months in and did drugs. In the mids, Winfrey briefly dated movie critic Roger Ebert , whom she credits with advising her to take her show into syndication.

In , before Winfrey's Chicago talk show had gone national, Haitian filmmaker Reginald Chevalier claims he appeared as a guest on a look-alike segment and began a relationship with 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.

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together since They were engaged to be married in November , but the ceremony never took place. Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. Since , when Winfrey played the therapist on an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet, Winfrey and King have been the target of persistent rumors that they were gay.

So I get why people have to label it—how can you be this close without it being sexual? All my stuff is out there. People think I'd be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please. Winfrey has also had a long friendship with Maria Shriver , after they met in Baltimore. Born in rural poverty, and raised by a mother dependent on government welfare payments in a poor urban neighborhood, Winfrey became a millionaire at the age of 32 when her talk show received national syndication.

Winfrey negotiated ownership rights to the television program and started her own production company. There has been a course taught at the University of Illinois focusing on Winfrey's business acumen; namely, "History Oprah Winfrey, the Tycoon". Forbes ' list of The World's Billionaires has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire from to and as the first black woman billionaire in the world that was achieved in Oprah was raised a Baptist.

In her early life, she would speak at local, mostly African American congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention that were often deeply religious and familiar with such themes as evangelical Protestantism , the Black church , and being born-again. She was quoted as saying: "I have church with myself: I have church walking down the street. I believe in the God force that lives inside all of us, and once you tap into that, you can do anything.

When you don't know what to do, do nothing until you do know what to do. Because the doubt is your inner voice or the voice of God or whatever you choose to call it. It is your instinct trying to tell you something is off. That's how I have found myself to be led spiritually, because that's your spiritual voice saying to you, 'let's think about it.

Oprah has stated that she is a Christian and her favorite Bible verse is Acts After the loss of her infant child at age 14, Winfrey did not want more children. In a interview with Vanity Fair , she explained "I didn't want babies. I wouldn't have been a good mom for babies. I don't have the patience. I have the patience for puppies but that's a quick stage!

Winfrey was called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" by CNN and TIME , [ ] "arguably the most influential woman in the world" by The American Spectator , [ ] " one of the people who most influenced the 20th Century " and "one of the most influential people" from to by TIME. Winfrey is the only person to have appeared in the latter list on ten occasions.

At the end of the 20th century, Life listed Winfrey as both the most influential woman and the most influential black person of her generation, and in a cover story profile the magazine called her "America's most powerful woman". As chairman of Harpo Inc. Winfrey was the only living woman to make the list. Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree with such assessments.

Interviewed by The Guardian in , Dowd said: "She is the top alpha female in this country. She has more credibility than the president. Other successful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart , had to be publicly slapped down before they could move forward. None of this happened to Oprah — she is a straight ahead success story.

I think Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in the world, not just in America. That's — anybody who goes on her program immediately benefits through the roof. I mean, she has a loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent; and she's done it on her own to become fabulously wealthy and fabulously powerful. In , Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American history as part of a public poll as part of The Greatest American.

She was ranked No. However, polls estimating Winfrey's personal popularity have been inconsistent. Her highest rating came in [ ] when she was statistically tied with Hillary Clinton for first place. The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication", meaning public confession as a form of therapy. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons.

Grasping this paradox, She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives. Observers have also noted the "Oprahfication" of politics such as "Oprah-style debates" and Bill Clinton being described as "the man who brought Oprah-style psychobabble and misty confessions to politics".

The November Ms. While Phil Donahue has been credited with pioneering the tabloid talk show genre, Winfrey's warmth, intimacy, and personal confession popularized and changed it. In the book Freaks Talk Back , [ ] Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high-impact media visibility for gay, bisexual , transsexual , and transgender LGBT people and doing more to make them mainstream and socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century.

In the book's editorial review, Michael Bronski wrote, "In the recent past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer , Jenny Jones , Oprah , and Geraldo , people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week.

Examples include a Time magazine article [ page needed ] on early 21st-century gays coming out of the closet at an increasingly younger age and on plummeting gay suicide rates. Gamson also believes that tabloid talk shows caused gays to be accepted on more traditional forms of media. The power of Winfrey's opinions and endorsement to influence public opinion, especially consumer purchasing choices, has been dubbed "the Oprah Effect ".

Late in , [ ] Winfrey introduced the Oprah's Book Club segment to her television show. The segment focused on new books and classics and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller; for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden , it soared to the top of the book charts.

Being recognized by Winfrey often means a million additional book sales for an author. When author Jonathan Franzen 's book was selected for the Book Club, he reportedly "cringed" and said selected books tend to be "schmaltzy". In , Winfrey apologized to Frey for the public confrontation. Winfrey was represented by attorney Chip Babcock and, on February 26, after a two-month trial in an Amarillo, Texas , court, a jury found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages.

Phil , The Dr. Matthew Baum and Angela Jamison performed an experiment testing their hypothesis, "Politically unaware individuals who consume soft news will be more likely to vote consistently than their counterparts who do not consume soft news". Winfrey states she is a political independent who has "earned the right to think for myself and to vote for myself".

The Columbia, South Carolina , event on December 9, , drew a crowd of nearly 30,, the largest for any political event of The results suggest that in the sampled states, Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for the difference in the popular vote between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Oprah childhood biography

In April , Winfrey spoke for more than 20 minutes at a fundraiser in Arlington, Virginia , for Lavern Chatman, a candidate in a primary to nominate a Democratic Party candidate for election to the U. House of Representatives. Winfrey endorsed Hillary Clinton in the election , and referred to Republican candidate Donald Trump as a "demagogue".

Really, there's plenty to explore, so let's look at the transformation of Oprah from childhood to 65 years of age — from her childhood to the peak of her career which now sees the world admiring her contribution and influence on media and popular culture. Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, , in Mississippi's Kosciusko to an unwed couple who did not live together.

Oprah was initially brought up on a pig farm with her maternal grandmother per Encyclopedia of World Biography. However, when she grew up, she was made to live with her mother, half-sister, and half-brother in Milwaukee. Oprah was fond of acting right from her childhood. She would playact in front of an "audience" of farm animals. However, it was not just all play for little Oprah — she was taught to read when she was two-and-a-half years old under her grandmother's guidance.

At two years of age, Oprah addressed her church congregation on Easter Day. Oprah's been quite vocal about what she's wanted right from her childhood. One day, little Oprah skipped her kindergarten class, writing a note to her teacher, saying that she belonged in the first grade. Following the note, Oprah was promoted to the third grade, which was a significant acknowledgment of her advanced intelligence.

Oprah was learning fast, and despite the lack of security and emotional comfort which might have come from a healthy parent-daughter relationship, Oprah ensured that she kept learning — an attitude that would help her tremendously in the times to come. Oprah Winfrey's teenage years form memories of a painful past, which involved sexual abuse when she was young, resulting in pregnancy at the age of Speaking to an audience of 15, at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena, Oprah recalled an interview she did with a reporter before said Australia trip.

In , Winfrey signed a new contract to continue The Oprah Winfrey Show through the —11 season. At the time, the syndicated show was seen on nearly stations across the United States and in more than countries worldwide. In , Winfrey announced that she would be ending her program when her contract with ABC ended, in The success of the show helped launch the TV careers of Dr.

Phil McGraw , Dr. Mehmet Oz , and Rachael Ray , who all had their own talk shows. The program has propelled many unknown authors to the top of the bestseller lists. In the final season of her talk show, Winfrey made ratings soar when she revealed a family secret: She has a half-sister named Patricia. At the time, Winfrey was 9 years old and living with her father.

Patricia lived in a series of foster homes until she was 7 years old. Patricia tried to connect with her birth mother through her adoption agency after she became an adult, but Lee did not want to meet her. Winfrey debuted Oxygen Media, a company she co-founded that was dedicated to producing cable and online programming for women, in Armstrong, the American cyclist who had his Tour titles stripped in because of doping, admitted to using performance-enhancing substances throughout his career, including the hormones cortisone, testosterone, and erythropoietin also known as EPO.

The interview reportedly brought in millions of dollars in revenue for the network. In December , Discovery announced it had become the majority owner of OWN, with the purchase of Winfrey retained In December , Winfrey sold another She is still chairman and CEO. The Hearst publication printed its last monthly issue in The 20th edition was featured on Amazon in In June , Winfrey agreed to a multi-year deal in which she would create original content for Apple.

As part of her partnership with Apple, Winfrey signed on as executive producer of On the Record , a documentary about several of the women who accused music producer Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct. However, Winfrey abruptly pulled her support of the doc shortly before it was scheduled to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you are not your circumstances.

You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything. Her range of media enterprises have made Oprah one of the richest self-made women. In Winfrey has a net worth of more than 2. The Oprah Winfrey book club has become the most influential book clubs in the world. A recommendation from Oprah Winfrey frequently sends books to the top of the best-seller lists.

Many commentators agree that Oprah Winfrey exerts enormous influence. Some estimated her support for Barack Obama helped him gain one million votes in the election. Oprah was widely admired for her role as Sofia. From to , she lent her support to the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Her influence and personal following played a key role in helping Obama to become the first African-American to become president.

In , Oprah gained a unique interview with the professional cyclist, Lance Armstrong.