Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey Is The Most Influential Woman In The World


What can you say about Oprah Winfrey? She has risen through the ranks to become one of the world’s best known celebrity stars.

Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi in 1954 to unmarried parents and was raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood in abject poverty. She had a very hard life and was raped at the age of nine and fell pregnant at the age of fourteen. Unfortunately her baby son died in infancy.

Her life began to turn around when she went to live with a man she called her father, in Tennessee and she got a job at the local radio station before leaving high school. She started co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her abilities were recognized early on and she was transferred to the daytime talk show spot having lifted the ratings at the radio station to the number one spot. She went on to launch her own production company, Harpo Productions, and in 1984 she started on her own half hour television show called “AM Chicago”, which later took over the number one spot from “Donahue” as the highest rating talk show in Chicago. In 1986, her show was re-named “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and was extended to one hour. It is still going today.

Forbes Magazine recently released the top 20 richest women in entertainment, and Oprah Winfrey is on top having made over $1.5 billion in her career, J.K. Rowling author of Harry Potter came in second with $1 billion, and Martha Stewart came in third with $638 million.

Oprah Winfrey has spoken to many celebrities on her show and has covered every conceivable story you could imagine, but there have been some controversial topics as well. Oprah is a very spiritual person and has many guests who share her philosophies, but when Eckhart Tolle appeared on her show with his new book “A New Earth” and the lessons which followed, many people accused Oprah and Eckhart of trying to get rid of Christianity and starting their own “religion” which was not the case.

Another highly controversial subject was Oprah Winfrey’s, and others, endorsement of the Acai berries as being the new super food. The Acai berry has many great attributes including diet and health factors, but what got the wider audience stirred up was the fact that some companies got onto the bandwagon and started promoting their Acai berry supplements as being endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Rachael Ray and others. As we all know, the majority of companies are very reputable but you always seem to attract the bad apples. What they did was to offer free trials of their supplements, signing you up to a subscription which you could not cancel because there was no cancellation button on the website and no contact details listed either. Many people were caught out in this scam which had nothing to do with Oprah Winfrey.

Whatever product Oprah Winfrey talks about on her show, you just know that it’s going to be a winner. She has also made stars of some people who appeared on her show such as Dr. Phil who has his own show. She has a lot of influence in the entertainment industry, with many celebrity stars eager to be on her show. She is a powerful, enigmatic woman, who has risen from the depths of despair to being the most influential black American woman in the world.