Oprah Winfrey's life in photos: from literal rags to riches

Oprah Winfrey has passed the age milestone of 70. The most famous talk show host was born on January 20, 1954. Read further to learn about her remarkable life story, from rags to riches.

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in Kosciusko (Mississippi). Her mother was single and the young girl was mostly raised by her grandmother.

Image: 'The Butler' / Weinstein Company

Oprah Winfrey's name was misspelled in her birth certificate. It was supposed to be Orpah after the biblical figure with the same name.

Oprah Winfrey's family comes a poor rural area in Mississippi. She spent part of her childhood dressed in clothes sewn by her grandmother from potato sacks, which earned her the nickname "sack girl."

Image: 'The Color Purple' / Warner Bros.

At the age of 9, Oprah moved to Milwaukee with her mother. There, she became the victim of assaults by a cousin and other relatives. As a talk show host, actress, and writer, she has often talked about her experiences as a victim of abuse.

Oprah Winfrey spent some time in a juvenile detention center when she was 13 years old. She had run away from the troubles in her home and was considered a 'wayward girl'.

At age 14 she became pregnant, but she lost the baby in premature delivery.

In 1991, Oprah Winfrey would testify about her horrific childhood to a United States Senate committee that studied new legislation concerning abuse. Called the National Child Protection Act, it proposed to create a database with the names of all the people who had been convicted for committing crimes against minors. The law would come to be known as the Oprah Law.

From a very young age, Oprah Winfrey was interested in hosting a talk show. She played at interviewing her dolls.

Her work in the media started by chance. When she was 17 years old, Oprah won a beauty pageant (Miss Fire Prevention) and was invited to a radio station in Nashville for an interview. There, she was offered her first job in the media.

Her own talk show, which was to become one of the most successful daytime shows in the world, ran from 1986 through 2011. Oprah interviewed celebrities, world leaders, and common people about any topic imaginable.

Or should we say, 'The Prince of Bel-Air' appeared on Oprah? It's hard to say which of the two shows was more legendary at the time.

Image: NBC

When she interviewed Michel Jackson in 1993, she achieved a record audience of 62 million viewers.

Oprah became known for giving each member of the audience in her show the most surprising gifts. In 2004, she gave all 276 members of her audience a Pontiac car with leather seats, worth $28,000 each.

Oprah Winfrey has a multitude of celebrity friends. At the farewell to her program, in 2011, she was accompanied by stars like Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Madonna, and Tom Hanks.

In the photo: Oprah with actress Halle Berry

She was one of the guests at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

According to Forbes in 2024, Oprah Winfrey's net worth is approximately 3 billion.

On January 1, 2010, she began a new TV channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

Oprah's production company is named Harpo, that is, her name is written backward.

Image: Oprah interviews singer Adele / CBS

Apart from her work as a TV host and producer, she has also been an actress. Some of her movies are quite memorable.

Image: 'The Color Purple' / Warner Bros.

In 1986 she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie 'The Color Purple'.

Image: Warner Bros.

In 2015, the movie 'Selma,' about the violence during Martin Luther King's Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights, was nominated for an Oscar in the category 'Best Film'. Oprah Winfrey played the role of a woman who tried to get access to the vote and participated in the march.

Image: Paramount

In 2011 she received an honorary Oscar for her humanitarian work.

TIME magazine has named her the most influential black woman of her generation.

She is the first African-American celebrity to appear on a Vogue cover. It happened in 1998.

She has been together with Stedman Graham since 1986.

Oprah decided not to have children. She does say, however, that she directs her maternal instincts to the nearly two hundred young women at her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, founded in 2015.

She has hinted that she may run for president of the United States someday. So far, it hasn't gotten to that point though...

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