Oprah is the wealthiest African-American woman on this spinning globe, worth a reported $2.9 billion. She is the first African-American female billionaire and one of few self-made women at that level. But even with all those accolades, she isn’t afraid to be caught out without full hair, full makeup, and she also isn’t afraid to admit that her life, and career, wouldn’t be what it is today if she decided to have kids.
The Hollywood Reporter is featuring the icon on the cover of their Women in Entertainment Power 100 issue. THR caught up with Oprah at her home, where she spoke about everything from why she didn’t have children, to how she learned not to be the First National Bank to everyone in her life. Check out the excerpts from the interview below.
Oprah on having kids:
“If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
On how Gayle King’s views on motherhood differed from her own:
“Gayle [King, Winfrey’s best friend and now a mother of two] was the kind of kid who, in seventh grade Home Ec class, was writing down her name and the names of her children,” she recalled. “While she was having those kind of daydreams, I was having daydreams about how I could be Martin Luther King.”
On setting boundaries on financially supporting others:
“When you’re the most successful person in your family, in your neighborhood and in your town, everybody thinks you’re the First National Bank and you have to figure out for yourself where those boundaries are. I got to the point where nobody ever asked me for anything less than $5,000. I felt pressured for a long time to say yes, because I thought, ‘I can’t lie and say I don’t have it. My salary is printed in the paper,’ ” she laughs, looking back at all her charity: “I’ve bought more houses and cars than I can even tell you.”
You get a house, you get a house, and you get a car.
We had to do it.
SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter | PHOTO CREDIT: THR
