- 1998
Method Acting
Beloved, a film adapted from a Toni Morrison novel, opens with Winfrey acting as both star and producer. While prepping for the film, she gets into the mindset of her character, a former slave in a post-Civil War setting, with a real-life reenactment. The role-playing was scheduled to last 48 hours, but Winfrey calls it off after six. "The guy in the reenactment [said], 'Nigger, you belong to me,'" she tells the Bergen Record of her time toiling in fields and running through woods for a faux-escape. "I felt shock waves of pain, pain, pain."
- 2000
Magazine Success
Winfrey launches O, the Oprah Magazine. After discord arises among the editing staff, Winfrey flies them all to her home in Miami. "The retreat was to sync ourselves up," Winfrey tells The New York Times. Six years later the magazine hits a circulation of 2.6 million.
- 2004
It's a New Car!
Winfrey launches her show's Wildest Dreams season and kicks it off by giving each of the 276 audience members a new Pontiac G6 car. A controversy arises when they have to pay almost $7,000 each in taxes for the gifts. "As soon as we heard [about the taxes,] we started working with the accountant to adjust our income taxes," Kyle Meyers, whose wife was in the audience, tells the Wisconsin State Journal. "But that's nothing compared to a new car. How could you complain about that?"
- 2005
Oprah's Crash Moment
Told that a Hermès store in Paris is closed and then denied entry, Winfrey becomes angry when she sees other people inside. Her spokespeople terms it her "Crash moment," after the movie about racial tensions. She calls the CEO of Hermès' U.S. subsidiary to inform him that she will not be shopping there again, but calls off her boycott after he apologizes to her on the air.
Furious at Frey
Winfrey chooses James Frey's memoir A Million Little Pieces for her book club. Four months later, she finds out parts of the book were made up and confronts him on air. "I feel duped, but more importantly I feel that you betrayed millions of readers," she says on her show.
Protecting Kids
Winfrey, herself a victim of sexual abuse, launches "Oprah's Child Predator Watch List," which shows photos of fugitive child predators and offers $100,000 rewards for their capture. Three have been turned in as of May 2006. This follows her 1992 documentary Scared Silent: Exposing and Ending Child Abuse.
Great Purple Way
Twenty years after starring in the film version of The Color Purple, Winfrey helps bring the story to Broadway. She appears on David Letterman's show the day the play opens to promote it, ending the 16-year rift that developed because, as she told Time in 2003, a previous appearance on Letterman's show made her uncomfortable.
- 2006
Just Friends
In the August issue of her magazine, Winfrey denies rumors that she's having a romantic relationship with best friend Gayle King. "I understand why people think we're gay," Winfrey writes in O. "There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women."
- 2007
Oprah Opens Schools
Winfrey opens the $40 million-plus Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. She chooses 152 of South Africa's neediest girls to attend. "This is the proudest, greatest day of my life," Winfrey says at the school's opening. In March, she opens the $1.6 million Seven Fountains Primary School – backed by Oprah's Angel Network. That year, she makes PEOPLE's Most Beautiful and Time's Most Influential lists. Nelson Mandela writes: "She is a model for all of us of what one person can do to make a difference in the lives of others."
Abuse at Oprah's African School
Oprah's South African all-girls academy is hit by allegations of abuse. Winfrey, herself a survivor of childhood abuse, flies to South Africa and hires counselors for the students. While publicly apologizing to families, she says, "I've disappointed you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." On Nov. 2, police in South Africa arrest the academy's former school matron on charges of physical and sexual abuse.
Photo Credits
BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): Walt Disney Co./Everett; Bob Davis/AP; George Burns/Harpo Productions/AP; CBS/Landov; Arnold Turner/WireImage; Denis Farrell/AP
- Name
- Oprah Winfrey
- Birth Date
- January 29, 1954
- Birth Place
- Kosciusko, Miss.
- Heart Monitor
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Stedman Graham, fiancé (1986 to present)
