Whether you like her or not, one thing about Oprah Winfrey we all have to agree about is that she is one hell of a show host.
However, her life hasn’t always been an easy one. She was forced to go thorough some harsh times when she was very young, but those experiences only made her stronger and more determined to succeed.
Oprah is in a relationship with her partner of many years, Stedman Graham. In fact, the two have been engaged for 29 years, but never said I do. Some magazines were speculating that the couple is planning to tie the knot at an intimate ceremony in their lavish Montesito home but they haven’t commented on the rumors.
The truth is that they have both said many times in the past that getting married could only complicate things and that if they had married, their relationship wouldn’t have lasted.
Throughout her career, Oprah interviewed a number of influential people, including Michael Jackson, President Barack Obama, Whitney Houston, Harry and Meghan, and a lot more.
At the start of her career, Oprah was one of the few women in predominantly male industry. That, however, never stood on her way of rising to stardom.
In 2011, after 25 successful years, she decided to end the worldwide famous The Oprah Winfrey Show. But that didn’t mean the end of her career.
“I love this show, this show has been my life, and I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye,” she said. “Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit. It’s the perfect number. It’s the exact right time.”
Her show won eight Daytime Emmy Awards and brought Oprah a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. She also earned the People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Talkshow Host” four times. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Speaking of her private life, Oprah revealed that she doesn’t have many friends. On her podcast Making Space, she explained, “So, I don’t have a lot of friends. Everybody knows Gayle [King]. There’s Gayle, there’s Maria, there’s Bob [Greene]. And that’s, that’s about it, you know? Gayle and Maria I met around the same time and I never really expanded that circle. Until recently, I’ve become friends with a couple of people in my later adult life, in the past five years.”
She believes it’s not important to have a great number of close people around you, but for those few to be real ones.
Ever since her friend Gayle got divorced back in 1994, she’s been the “third wheel” in the relationship between Oprah and Graham.
“I’m a proud third wheeler,” Gayle told ET. “I make no apologies for that. I got divorced back in 1994 and I’ve been their third wheel ever since. The good news is that Stedman is always very welcoming, so it never occurs to me when she says, ‘We’re going to so and so,’ I’m like, ‘When?’
“It doesn’t occur to me that I’m not invited,” she added. “But throughout the years, we’ve gone on some great trips together. And that’s not gonna change.”
Oprah and Graham don’t have any children, and they are perfectly fine with their decision because that’s something they both wanted.
“He’s never demanding anything from me like, ‘Where’s my breakfast? Where’s my dinner?’ Never any of that, which I believed would have changed had we married,” Oprah Winfrey said of her fiancé, according to Yahoo.
“No question about it — we would not stay married, because of what that would have meant to him, and I would have had my own ideas about it. I have not had one regret about that.
“At one point in Chicago, I had bought an additional apartment because I was thinking, ‘Well, if we get married, I’m going to need room for children,’” she added.
Oprah said she believed motherhood requires responsibility and “sacrifice.”
“I realized, ‘Whoa, I’m talking to a lot of messed-up people, and they are messed up because they had mothers and fathers who were not aware of how serious that job is,’” she told People.
“I don’t have the ability to compartmentalize the way I see other women do. It is why, throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home with their kids, because I don’t know how you do that all day long. Nobody gives women the credit they deserve.”
Today, Oprah lives in an estate worth staggering $100 million. Recently, she shared with her fans that she got her COVID-19 vaccines.