People cover
Winfrey appears on the cover of People after announcing she’s ending her talk show after 20 years. Winfrey discusses what she plans on doing once the show is officially over. On making the announcement:
Audience, you can breathe now. You’re making me nervous—and I don’t get nervous! Wish me luck.
O Magazine interview
Jay-Z gives an interview to Oprah for O Magazine about being abandoned by his father when he was 11.
[I felt] Anger. At the whole situation. Because when you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again. So I remember just being really quiet and really cold. Never wanting to let myself get close to someone like that again. I carried that feeling throughout my life, until my father and I met up before he died.
O Magazine interview
Edwards gives an interview to Oprah for O Magazine. She talks about receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis from her doctors.
I Cry[ed]. I admit it. We were sitting in a little room in the hospital, and it was hard not to break down. But then we said we’re going to keep pushing. You can fight for yourself or you can just throw your hands up and say, Okay, I’m through. I’ll just wait to die.
O Magazine interview
First Lady Michelle Obama gives an interview to Oprah for O Magazine about her first week in the White House.
Well, we still had family here, so it was almost like a wedding. A huge, very complicated wedding. The last visitors didn’t leave until Sunday. And then the first Monday was kind of weird. You know: Now we live here, and Barack is getting up and going to work, and it’s just us. This is our home now. But the kids didn’t act any differently.
O Magazine interview
Fey gives an interview to Oprah for O Magazine about her impersonation of Sarah Palin on SNL.
No. I just kept thinking, I don’t work here anymore, so if this ends up being lousy, I told you guys I don’t do this. I also felt safe doing it with Amy [Amy Poehler played both Hillary Clinton and Katie Couric in the SNL sketches]. I wouldn’t have enjoyed doing it alone, because I never did anything alone on SNL.
O Magazine interview
Pink gives an interview to Oprah for O Magazine about his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.
In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they’re not enough. What’s important now are the characteristics of the brain’s right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.
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Shriver talks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about making a name for herself in the world and finding her way.
I’d have to find another thing. That’s what I wrote about in the book Just Who Will You Be? I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself. So many people would come up to me and say, Which Kennedy are you? At a very young age, I thought, You’re going to know which one I am. I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected I became the Kennedy who was married to the governor.
O Magazine interview
Chodron speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about why she became a Buddhist priest.
I became involved in Buddhism in a way that’s very appealing to a lot of people because of the fact that their lives fall apart, and that’s what happened to me. When my second marriage broke up, it just floored me, but I had some kind of fundamental sanity that kept saying, There’s something very profound in this that will teach you something so I started looking for it. The first line of Chögyam Trungpa’s article Working with Negativity read, We all experience negativity the basic aggression of wanting things to be different than they are. Everything else was saying, Look at the positive side, and this said, Stay with your experience. That’s how it started.
O Magazine interview
Washington speaks to Oprah in an interview for O Magazine about his role in The Great Debaters.
Man, it just moved me. I felt an emotional connection. What I learned while doing research for the film is that many black colleges, like Wiley and Morehouse, opened during the decade following the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. That’s because education was believed to be the way out, so when millions of black people were finally let go after almost 250 years, boom, we opened schools. And that’s partly why Melvin Tolson’s debate team was able to beat these other national teams in the ’30s: Great thinkers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Melvin B. Tolson couldn’t teach at schools like Harvard or Columbia. But the film is really about the kids and the journey of one boy in particular.
O Magazine interview
Seinfeld speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about producing Bee Movie.
I asked Steven Spielberg to direct a commercial I was going to make for American Express. I’d never met him, but I thought, What the hell why don’t I call? I’m Jerry Seinfeld, I’m not just nobody. [Laughs] Steven says, I can’t do it, but why don’t we have dinner tomorrow in East Hampton? I say, That sounds great. Then I hang up the phone and go, Oh my God! I’m a Jewish boy from Long Island, and I’m having dinner with Steven Spielberg! It was like my second Bar Mitzvah.
[At dinner] when we started talking about kids we were off to the races, but then the conversation ground to a halt. It happens to the best of us. As an entertainer, that’s when I kick into gear and say something witty to jump-start the conversation. The night before, I was sitting with a couple of friends, eating a Twizzler, and I said, What if somebody did a film called Bee Movie, and it was about bees? So during the dinner with Steven, I said this to relieve the lull we’d just crashed into. I figured, he’s a director, he’ll relate to the term B movie. But he didn’t laugh; he fixed his eyes on me and said, We’re going to make that movie. I was like, What do you mean we, Kemosabe? He said it was a great idea, and when he gets excited, it’s almost scary. He can get everyone else in the room excited! You don’t meet older people like that too often. It’s wonderful.
O Magazine interview
Fantasia speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about being raped as a teenager.
I had a crush on this guy. He was the best ballplayer, and all the girls wanted him. I thought I had no chance with him. One day during a game after school, I was flaunting around in an itty-bitty dress. I was flirting, and he told me, You’re going to get something you don’t want. And that’s exactly what happened. Yes. I went home and threw away my clothes. I didn’t tell my mama because I thought she would say, I told you so. I just lay on my bed, and I didn’t go to school for a couple of days. My mom came to me and said, Something’s not right with you. I know that somebody put his hands on you. That’s when I knew I had her support. We turned the guy in, but going back to school was hell; his homeboys would say, I’m going to do to you exactly what he did. They thought it was funny. That’s when I quit school.
O Magazine interview
McFadden speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine and tells how she feels about living in the same house where her children were murdered.
This is where they were born. I can still see their smudgy handprints on the walls. The plants they planted are here. Stuart’s tree is out in the front yard. Stan painted the house. The few minutes it took somebody to come in and put bullets into them is not what my children are all about.
O Magazine interview
Kennedy Jr. speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about if he has a fear of terrorist attacks in the United States.
I think the worst thing this White House has done is to use fear as a governing tool. No, I don’t fear for our country in terms of an attack. They’ve used the excuse that 9/11 suddenly put us in the most dangerous part of our history. That’s nonsense. When you and I were raised, there were 25,000 nuclear warheads pointed at America, and we faced absolute annihilation. That was a dangerous time. When George Washington fought the British and his troops didn’t have shoes, that was a dangerous time. And during the Civil War, if we had lost Gettysburg, the United States of America would have disappeared.
O Magazine interview
Rhimes speaks to Winfrey in an interview for O Magazine about watching herself on TV during an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
I catch 20 minutes here or there, but I find it hard to watch. I want the show to be everything we shoot. After an episode is edited, there are whole chunks you guys won’t get to see. I’m like, Oooh, that was such a good scene. But I like watching the other actors.
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Combs talks to Winfrey for O Magazine about his career goals and dreams.
I want to have a cultural impact. I want to be an inspiration, to show people what can be done. I’ve always been a daydreamer. When the other kids were playing, I was listening to the roar at Yankee Stadium I was always attracted to the roar of the crowd. I wanted to know: What would make somebody roar like that? I was always looking at the hustle and bustle of people working. I wanted to work.
O Magazine interview
Streisand gives an interview to Winfrey for O Magazine about her childhood and teaching her mother how to smoke at age 10.
Very early. I was kind of a wild child, like an animal. I could never sit still at a table not that my family ever sat down and ate a meal together. I used to stand over the stove and eat out of a pot. There was no mealtime. I have no idea when my brother and sister ate, because I came in whenever I wanted. I also taught my mother how to smoke when I was 10.
O Magazine interview
Fitch gives an interview to Winfrey for O Magazine about why she became a writer.
Yes. My father was an engineer he wasn’t literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world’s great readers. Every two weeks, he’d take me to our local branch library and pull books off the shelf for me, stacking them up in my arms. Have you read this? And this? And this? He taught me to always take out the maximum number of books I think it was 12 so in case there were books I didn’t like, I’d always have something else to read. If I became a reader and then a writer, I can say that it was because of his love of books and his sharing that love. When you’re a little kid, you are small, your life is small and you’re terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dog-sledder.
O Magazine interview
Jackman gives an interview to Winfrey for O Magazine about career lessons he learns from his dad.
I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his résumé, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn’t raise me to just go out and buy this or that car. The only reason I wanted to make money as an actor was because I’m passionate about food! But as disciplined as my father was with money, he would never try to save a dime on education. He loved being an accountant. He’d tell me, You’ve got to love what you do because it’s going to take a lot of your effort and time. He had only one reservation about my being an actor. He said, I think you’re too thin-skinned. And I am fairly thin-skinned.
O Magazine interview
Blige gives an interview to Winfrey for O Magazine about the meaning of her album The Breakthrough.
It means a lot. One day I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free. In the inner city, there’s a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I’ve gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.
O Magazine interview
Meg Ryan gives an interview to Winfrey for O Magazine about CARE an international aid organization.
CARE came to me because they were initiating a campaign called I Am Powerful, which is about paralleling the lives of women in the first world with women in the third world. They’re always looking for the seed of the idea that can be most productive in building people’s lives. I just kept thinking, Wow, this is a beautiful idea. I’d gone to India before, but I’ve never seen it the way I did with CARE. Have you been there?