Oprah Winfrey, America's first lady of talk shows, is famed for outperforming her peers to become the most viewed daytime show host on television. On the Oprah Winfrey Show, her natural approach with guests and viewers gained her great acclaim, as did her own production business, Harpo, Inc.
From 1986 to 2011, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was broadcast from Chicago, was the highest-rated television programme of its kind in history and aired in national syndication for 25 years. She was dubbed the "Queen of All Media" and was once the world's only black millionaire and the greatest black philanthropist in US history. By 2007, she was widely regarded as the most powerful woman on the planet.
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on an isolated farm in Kosciusko, Mississippi to a single teenage mother. Her mother, Vernita Lee travelled to the north where the duo lived under extreme poverty with Winfry's maternal grandmother.
During her early age, her grandmother used to take her to a church where she was popularly known as “The Preacher '' as she was capable of reading the Bible fluently. With these little efforts by her grandmother, she got a hold on language which gave a mere reflection of a good speaker inside her.
Winfrey was later brought up in inner-city Milwaukee with a man she calls her father Vernon Winfrey, a barber from Nashville, Tennessee.
Starting from the age of nine, Winfrey claims she was assaulted by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, which she first revealed on a 1986 edition of her TV show about sexual abuse. When Winfrey told her family about the alleged abuse when she was 24, they reportedly didn't believe her. Winfrey once said that she didn't want to be a mother since she hadn't been well mothered. Winfrey ran away from home at the age of 13 after years of abuse. She became pregnant when she was 14, but her son was born prematurely and died soon after.
Working at a small grocery shop was Winfrey's first job as a teenager. Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty contest when she was 17 years old. She also caught the attention of WVOL, a local black radio station, which recruited her part-time to do the news. During her senior year of high school and the first two years of college, she worked there. She'd won an oratory competition, earning a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black college where she studied communication. She did not deliver her final paper or obtain her diploma until 1987, by which time she had established herself as a successful television personality.
After struggling with all odds, Winfrey's career pumped up and she won the award for youngest and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. In 1993, she hosted a rare-prime time interview with Michale Jackson which became the fourth most watched programme in American television history. Later she was also nominated for an Academy award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Steven Spielberg's 'The Color Purple'. Similarly she has won several awards for acting as well as producing skills.
In March 2021, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Megh Markle, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex together which was watched by over 49 million people on television. The interview became controversial as Meghan levelled serious charges of racism against the British royal family.
