Oprah Winfrey is one of the biggest names in the world. But do you know these fifteen facts about her?
Since late 1990s, the world has been acquainted to the name Oprah Winfrey. Day by day, Oprah brought interesting, touching, or shocking stories from the couches on her talk show to the viewers back home. And so her name began skyrocketing.
Born on January 29th, 1954, Oprah is a world-renowned media mogul now. Some say she is the queen of all media. And that is because she didn’t just host a media program. But she is also the chairwoman and CEO of media companies, Harpo Productions and Oprah Winfrey Network.
With that many topnotch occupations, can you imagine how rich she is? What have she done with all of the money she can get? And how did she get to this point?
Underneath her fame and wealth, there are so much more to tell. And on this article, we cover some of them. So, as you go through each page, you’ll get to know Oprah Winfrey more and more.
15. How did she start it all?
Every success story has a starting point and so does Oprah’s. A career in media has always been her first choice. Even since she was a kid, she loves to speak. And her grandma once said that little Oprah used to play games interviewing her dolls.
So as she grew up, she chose to study communication which goes hand in hand with her passion. The combination of her winning Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and her public speaking skill attracted local radio station, WVOL.
She took a part-time job do to the news at WVOL, which serves mostly to African-American community. And she worked there as she studied at high school and continued until college.
From there, she moved up to the TV screen as she worked as news anchor in some local TV stations. Her breakthrough came as she hosted AM Chicago. She brought the show from the lowest rating to the highest-rated talk show in Chicago. And the rest is history.
14. Childhood struggles
“You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!”
I remember watching that Oprah show on TV and I got goosebumps. Oprah Winfrey surprised all of her audiences at the studio that day with a special gift: brand new car for everyone. You would wonder, what lies beneath such generosity. Well, Oprah knew exactly what it’s like to struggle in life as she had to go through such a rough childhood.
Oprah was born to an unmarried teenage mother. They lived with her poor grandma. And she was once living on a farm without indoor plumbing. Her family was so poor that sometimes she had to wear dresses made of potato sacks. Imagine the bullies she had to go through.
As if that was not rough enough, Oprah would get beaten by a stick by her grandma when she failed to do chores or misbehaved. However, her grandma was supportive of her and she was one of the main factors which made Oprah the media mogul she is today.
13. How rich is Oprah Winfrey?
Decades of bright career and entrepreneurship have brought Oprah Winfrey to her dream life. She did not just successfully pull herself out of poverty, but also conquer the hardest obstacles. And that put her as the 15th richest self-made billionaire who were once poor.
Now, she is worth $2.9 billion thanks to her entrepreneurship instinct. Yes, her salary as TV host made her a millionaire at the age of 32. But she did not just star her talk show. She asked for ownership rights to it.
So, as the Oprah show grew bigger along with her $80 million annual salary, her net worth reached $340 million when she was just 41 years old. Now, she is the world’s 569th richest people in the world. And she keeps going as the 21st most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes.
Oprah’s family and companies are not the only ones benefit from her wealth. Apparently, her dogs also inherit $30 million. And that is stated on Oprah’s will. Look at that, dogs that are richer than most of us.
12. Multi castles
What do you do when you have $2.9 billion net worth? You buy yourself a nice house. And for Oprah, it is not just one house, but many.
The house you see on the picture above is her most expensive property. Located in Montecito, that house is worth around $50 million. The whole house, gardens, parks, fields, and all cover a 42-acre area with both ocean and mountain views. She even named that house The Promised Land. And that is where she currently lives.
During her time filming her talk show, she stayed at her penthouse in Chicago. It is a 15,000-square duplex penthouse. And that is not all, she also owns properties in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Hawaii, and Antigua. She also likes to buy property for investment. She once bought a 23-acre farm worth $28 million.
To get her from one house to another, Oprah bought herself a custom-designed private jet. It is a Global Express XRS jet. And it is worth around $42 million.
11. Generous philanthropist
I mentioned about that episode where Oprah gave away brand new cars to all of her studio audience. And that was not the first time she was being so generous. Oprah is known as one of the most generous philanthropists in the world.
By this time, she has given away hundreds of million dollars to charity, especially for educational causes. And she mostly gives them through scholarships.
Education and African American culture are the closest to her heart. This is probably what drove her to build a school for girls in South Africa. It is called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. And it is located in Johannesburg. It first opened in 2007 and now it admits 450 pupils.
Four years ago, Oprah donated $12 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This generous action was acknowledged by President Obama as he awarded her with Presidential Medal of Freedom.
10. What is her secret of success?
So, the big question is: what is her secret of success? What did she do so differently that put her as one of the top personalities in media industry?
It is the same answer to this question: why do you watch Oprah show? The answer is simple. She was able to genuinely touch people’s heart. Her talk show was not just about Q&A, but it was about telling a story from its deepest layer.
Many of her guests left some of the most memorable moments on TV. They cried, they jumped on the couch (actually, only Tom Cruise did that), and they showed their true color. All of those happened because Oprah made them feel comfortable to do so.
Simply being a talk show host would not have brought her to who she is today. She loves what she does. It is her passion. And she took the challenge to create her own network. When skills meet innovation, that is when great things happen.
9. The Oprah Show
Now, let’s take a look at the biggest headline throughout her entire career, the Oprah Show. This was where all the magic happened.
It all started in 1986 when the show aired for the first time. Since then, the show had been very influential to the American society, especially in terms of topics penetrating pop-cultural consciousness.
Averagely, the show was viewed by at least 6 million viewers a day. And to date, it still holds the record of all-time highest rated daytime TV show in United States. In addition to that, it won forty seven Daytime Emmy Awards until Oprah decided to stop submitting it for the award since 2000.
The talk show became a hit worldwide as well. It was aired in more than one hundred countries, including Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and Indonesia.
The Oprah Show last aired on May 25, 2011 on its 25th season and for over four thousand episodes.
8. Yo-to weight loss
Weight problem has been an issue for Oprah. As mentioned before, when she was a teenager, she won a beauty pageant. So, she was not obese back then. But as time went by, she gained more and more weight.
Oprah admitted that it was the result of her emotional turmoil. She was in constant need of approval. When she realized she just needed to love herself, she started to gain awareness of her body and health.
Even though she encourages others to lose weight so that they can live their life to the fullest, she claimed that she is not against the differences of female body figures. She believes that if you are happy with how you are, go for it. And everyone should not harm themselves just to get thin to impress people.
Oprah herself has been in a “yo-yo” weigh loss. She lost some, and then gained some back. And once she reached 238 lbs. But recently she lost about 40 lbs through a weight loss program she partly owns, Weight Watchers. And through her 40-lb-loss success, her Weight Watchers stock rose and gained her millions of dollar.
7. She “created” Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil is now one of the richest TV pundits in the world. And his name has become some sort of a term for “a shrink” in the American pop culture. So, how did he become so popular? Oprah.
Before his own show, Phil McGraw started it all at the Oprah Show. He was one of the show’s fixtures and appeared for a couple segments from time to time. And hadn’t he met Oprah before, he wouldn’t have had the airtime on national highest-rated TV show.
Back in 1998, Oprah was sued for her comment on mad cow disease during the show. She said that because of that disease, she stopped eating burger. And right after that, beef producers all across US lost around $11 million in sales.
Dr. Phil was a part of her legal team for the trial in Texas. Then, not long after their first meeting, he appeared on the show. And about four years later, she created Dr. Phil’s own show, Dr. Phil. So, in a way, Oprah was the one who created Dr. Phil, both literally and figuratively.
6. Her “secret son”
About two years ago, a rumor about Oprah having a secret son surfaced. Calvin Mitchell, the guy on the left, approached her on the set of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, wanting to talk to her. But Oprah refused and asked her team to take his number instead. Is he really her son?
The story rose up because Oprah is known to have a son back in the 1990s but he passed away on the same year he was born. When Calvin’s story surfaced, some people thought that the child didn’t actually die, but only abandoned and kept from everyone else. So, what was the true story?
Apparently, Calvin sold this “secret son” story to the media. And knowing that, Oprah gave up on reaching out to him and they never meet again.
After a few days of silence, Oprah finally spoke up about this rumor. Calvin is not her biological son. She met young Calvin on a movie set back in 1992. And he was a struggling young man, and Oprah decided to help him financially for his education. But Calvin took that for granted and left school. Oprah gave him another chance but he blew it again. Because of that, she decided not to help him anymore.
5. Political stands controversy
Whatever Oprah said on her show, America listened. This was proven by her beef with the beef producers we mentioned earlier. And that was not the only time it happened.
Her political view is considered to be important not because of her political background, but because of this particular matter. And it is not politic if it doesn’t come with opposing stand. As you can guess, this part of her life also became a controversy.
During the 2008 US presidential election, Oprah endorsed Obama. She was even reported to donate $1 million to his campaign fund. The result? Experts analyzed that she gained Obama around 400,000 to 1.5 million votes.
The opposing side had a different story. Oprah was alleged to refuse Sarah Palin appearing on her show during the presidential election. And recently, Oprah tweeted about the president elect, Donald Trump. She posted a picture of him sitting with Obama with a caption “Everybody take a deep breath! #HopeLives!”
4. Denied entrance to Hermes, Paris
For this matter, you should take two things into consideration. First, a luxury store has to keep its customers happy. And one of its ways to do so is by making sure that those who enter the shop are “worthy” to buy the luxury goods. You know, look good, smell good, seem to be rich, etc.
Second, celebrities on TV put on a lot of makeups along with hairdos and wardrobes. Some of them stick to that image even when they just want to go for grocery shopping. Well, that is not the case for Oprah. Sometimes she goes without makeup at all.
Now, when those two things collide, it could get ugly. And that is what happened to Oprah in 2005. As she was about to enter Hermes luxury store in Paris, a staff stopped her and asked her to leave. The staff told her that the store was closing even that Oprah knew there were still people inside.
Oprah felt humiliated. So, Hermes President, Robert Chavez, appeared on her show to apologize to her on public. Then, the dispute was ended and they live happily ever after.
3. Best boss ever
This is definitely a part of Oprah’s secret of success. As a philanthropist, she is kind to those in needs. And as an employer, she is generous to her employees. What good of generosity if you don’t share it with those close to you, right?
Working with Oprah has been the best experience to her crew. It is not just because of her generosity, but also her respect. She does not boss people around. She calls those who work for her or with her as her team. And she treats them as so.
The people at Harpo Productions and Oprah Winfrey Network love working for her. How can they not when they get to go on a luxury cruise ship for free?
That’s right. Oprah once sent her entire employees on a cruise ship to the Mediterranean Sea. That was in 2009, And she spent almost $1 million for that event only. If that doesn’t make her the best boss ever, I don’t know what will.
2. Survived sex abuse
As if rough childhood through poverty is not enough, Oprah had to suffer through sex abuse. And through her success, she is open about this part of her life. She is proud to be a survivor and she helps those going through the same.
Oprah was molested by her cousin, uncle, and even a family friend when she was just nine years old. She had no one to protect her. Not even her mother. The fact that she had not been mothered well makes her chose not to be a mother herself. Had enough with all the pains, she ran away from home by the age of thirteen.
As she talked about this openly on her show back in 1986, the spotlight hit her family members. But they refused to accept what she said.
Oprah became pregnant when she was just a teenager. But her son was born prematurely and he died not long after the birth. She didn’t want to tell the public about this fact, but her family member sold this story to National Enquirer in 1990.
1. Street named after her
A key to the city or one official day is one of the ways town mayors show their appreciation towards notable citizens. And for Oprah, former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley honorary named a street after her. That is how you give a gift to someone who has everything.
Now, the block where the Harpo Studios is located is also known as the Oprah Winfrey Way. And it is the Washington Boulevard of Chicago, Illinois.
“I just want to say thank you to the mayor and also to the city of Chicago for embracing me and allowing me to take a stand and make a stand here in this city.” – Oprah Winfrey
Well, Oprah, you take and make a stand not just in Chicago, but also the entire United States and other parts of the world.
And now that you know a bit more about Oprah Winfrey, what do you think about her? Is she someone inspiring to you? Share your thoughts in the comment section! And spread these 15 facts through social media by simply sharing the article. Thank you for reading!
