Interviewee: Oprah Winfrey
Interviewer: Ellen Degeneres
Date: March 25, 2008

Oprah Winfrey is a famous American media personality best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. The show has become the highest rating program of its kind in the history of the media industry. Born on January 29, 1954, the successful celebrity has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century. She was also once known as the world’s only black billionaire.

Being one of the most influential women in the world, one can never imagine her being born in poverty. However, at the age of 32 when her TV show The Oprah Winfrey Show went national, she was already able to start her own production company because of the revenues her show was earning. She earned renown as the wealthiest woman in the early 1990s. Moreover, she is the only African American to rank in America’s 400 richest people nearly every year since 1995.

Oprah Winfrey is the most philanthropic African American of all time. In 1998, she began Oprah’s Angel Network, a charity intended to persuade people around the world to make a difference in the lives of unprivileged others. The charity supports charitable organizations and provides grants to non-profit organizations around the world that support the same cause. She and her team filmed an episode for show in South Africa to bring attention to the plight of children affected by poverty and AIDS.

Oprah Winfrey has published two magazines: O, The Oprah Magazine and O At Home and has co-authored five books. In 2002, O, The Oprah Magazine was named the most successful start-up magazine in the industry by Fortune Magazine.

Oprah Winfrey and partner Stedman Graham currently lives on “The Promised Land,” a 42-acre estate with ocean and mountain views in Montecito, California outside Santa Barbara.