i think that success is a process
and i believe that my first
easter speech in the kosciuszko baptist
church
at the age of three and a half was was
the beginning and that every other
speech
every other book i read every other time
i spoke in public
was was a building block so that by the
time i
first sat down to audition in front of a
television camera
and somebody says read this what allows
me to read it so comfortably and
be so at ease with myself at that time
was the fact that i'd been doing in a
while if i'd never read a book
like never spoken in public before i
would have been traumatized by it so
um the fact that um we went on the air
with the oprah winfrey show in 1986
nationally and people say oh but you
should
you're so comfortable in from the camera
you can be yourself well it's because
i've been being myself
since i was 19 and i would not have i
would not have been able to be as
comfortable with myself
had i not made mistakes on the air
and been allowed to make mistakes on the
air and
understand that it doesn't matter you
know i there's no such thing to me as an
embarrassing moment
no such thing if i tripped and fell if
my bra strap
showed if my slip fell off if i fell
flat on my face
there's no such thing as an embarrassing
moment because i know that there is not
a moment
that i could possibly experience on the
air
that somebody else hasn't already
experienced so when it happens you say
my slip fell off and it's it's no big
deal i mean like
i was on tv the other day and somebody
says over you have a run
have you not seen a run before in your
life well i get them too
let me tell you so let me see i can't be
embarrassed i can't be embarrassed
now when i first started out that was
not true
because i was under the i was pretending
to be somebody i was not i was
pretending to be barbara walters so i'd
go to a news conference and i was more
interested
in how i phrased the question
and how eloquent the question sounded as
opposed to listening to the answer
which always happens when you're
interested in impressing people instead
of doing what you're supposed to be
doing
and it took me a while it took me
messing up on the air
on during the live newscast i
was doing a list of foreign countries
and i there was all these foreign names
and then canada was thrown in
and i called canada canada and i got so
tickled that i called ken
i go that wasn't canada that was canada
excuse me that wasn't canada that was
that was in canada that was canada
and then i started laughing well it was
it was it became a
became the first real moment i ever had
and um
the news director lady said to me well
if you do that then you should just keep
going you shouldn't correct yourself and
let people out
well i know well who's ever heard of
canada so
that was for me the beginning of
realizing that oh
you can laugh at yourself and you can
make a mistake and it's not the end of
the world you don't have to be perfect
and
biggest lesson for me for television
because then it didn't matter
it didn't matter oh sorry boss strip
showing i only came to
co-host a talk show because i had failed
at news
and i was going to be fired and the news
director was paying me 22 000 a year
god only knows what my co-anchor was
making uh but
was paying me 22 000 a year and they
thought they were paying me too much
money
to um to only just do news stories
and so i'd been taken off the six
o'clock news
and was was put on the early morning
like
five three cut-ins and they tried to
convince me at the time they said
you know you are you're so good that you
need your own time period
so we're going to give you five minutes
at 5 30
in the morning and i was devastated
because up until that point i
i sort of cruised i really hadn't
thought a lot about my life
or the direction it was taking i just
because i'd happened
into television happened into radio sort
of happenstance
um i don't believe in luck i think luck
is preparation meeting opportunity but
i i felt like i had somewhat prepared
myself
but that i had happenstance into it so i
thought okay
i was working in nashville and so i
moved to baltimore and now then i'll do
this for a while and then i don't know
what i'll do
and so when i was called in and
put on the edge of being fired and
certainly demoted and knew that firing
was only a couple weeks away
i was like devastated i was 22 and i
mean
embarrassed by the whole thing because
i'd never failed before
and it was that failure that led to the
talk show
because they had no place else to put me
they put me on a talk show one morning
and i'm telling you the hour i
interviewed my very first interview was
the carvel ice cream man
and um benny from all my children never
forget it
and i came off the air thinking this is
what i should have been doing
because it was it was like breathing to
me like breathing
you just talk be yourself is really what
i've learned to do
and so um from the very first day
i i did my very first talk show i felt i
knew it
i knew it was the right thing to do i
felt the same thing about acting too
only i was so terrified that um
it was a little more difficult for me
for me the turn on enacting
for me to turn on is the ability
to express another person's life
i think if you can internalize
and then manifest
externally the essence of another
being that is the ultimate in
understanding what it takes to take
somebody else's life
make it your own and put it out there
it's the ultimate you you understand
um things about people that you could
never imagine you
it's like almost for a while getting to
live somebody else's life
without having to experience all of the
experience that comes with creating
another life
quincy jones had i would not even say an
important role i would say
the role in my acting career quincy
jones discovered me
and it's so interesting to me because
when i was uh working as a television
news woman in baltimore
and really all i wanted to do was be in
actors but i was
doing television and i felt at the time
like i can't quit this job
because this is what everybody else
wants to do and if i quit this job
what am i going to do um
and i was going to a speech coach at the
time that the station had sent me to
they
you know they have the broadcasting
school they sent everybody the same
woman
and i was telling her you know i really
don't want to do this what i really want
to do
is act and she says my dear you don't
want to act because if you wanted to act
you'd be doing it
what you want to be my dear as a star
because
if you wanted to actually be waiting
tables in new york you'd be and i
thought now why am i gonna wait tables
if i'm already working in tv
so i said well what i think is going to
happen
is i will be discovered because i want
it so badly somebody's going to have to
discover me
and she said you just dream you dream
you're a dreamer so when it happened
i called her up i said you will not
believe this
i got discovered and it really was a
discovery it's like one of those lana
turner stories only
um wasn't a drugstore he was uh in his
hotel room
saw me on tv it was unbelievable the
interesting thing about that is that
i i truly believe that
thoughts are the greatest vehicle
to change power and success in the world
everything begins with thoughts the
chairs that we're sitting in
the room that we're in all started
because somebody thought it so
i thought up the color purple for myself
i know this is going to sound strange to
you
i read the book i i got so many copies
of that book
i passed the book around everybody i
knew
if i was on the bus i'd pass it out to
people and
when i heard that there was going to be
a movie i started i started talking it
up for myself
i didn't know quincy jones or steven
spielberg or how on
earth i would get in this movie i've
never acted in my life
but i i felt it so intensely that i had
to be a part of that movie i just
i i really do believe i created it for
myself i wanted it more than
anything in the world and would have
done anything to do it
anything to do it the most powerful
scene the color purple for me was a
scene
uh where sophia walks through the
cornfield
and proclaims herself to see
defines and proclaims herself where she
says
all my life i had to fight i had to
fight my cousins i had to fight my
brothers i had to fight my uncles
but i never thought i had to fight my
own house
um i did that scene in one take because
it was
it was the essence i thought of my life
uh and very liberating
to live it through sofia because at the
time that i spoke it i wasn't there yet
because what she is saying is i've
fought people all my life
and i'm not going to fight in my own
house anymore in my own space anymore
i'm going to have what i deserve
and it's taken me a while to get to
where sophia was but it was so
liberating
uh it was all i think a part of the
process of growth for me to recognize
it can be done
i was raised on a farm with my
grandmother um
for the first six years of my life i
knew somehow that my life would be
different and it would be better i never
had uh
a clear cut vision of what it was i
would be doing
i just always felt somehow i remember
absolutely physically feeling it at
around four years old i remember
standing on the back porch was a
screened in porch
and my grandmother was boiling clothes
because
you know during the at that time we
didn't have washing machines until
people would you know physically boil
clothes in a great big iron pot she was
boiling clothes and poking them now and
i was watching her from the back porch
and i was four years old and i remember
thinking my life won't be like this
my life won't be like this it will be
better and it wasn't uh
from a place of arrogance it was just a
place of knowing that things could be
different from me somehow i don't know
what made me think that i always wanted
to be an actress
for most of my adolescent and adult life
my father didn't want me to be because
his idea of what an actress was was
one of these you know lewd women and how
are you going to take care
of your life um
so i always wanted to be an actress and
have taken i think a
roundabout way to get there because i
still don't feel fulfilled as an actress
i still feel like okay
once i'm now i own my own studio and all
this but i'm thinking i did all of this
just to be an actress i just want to be
able
to act um for a while i wanted to be a
school teacher
in the fourth grade mrs duncan was my
great
greatest inspiration in the fourth grade
is when i first
i think began to believe in myself
uh i think i for the first time believed
that i could do almost
anything i felt i was the queen bee i
felt i could
um control the world i was going to be a
missionary
i was going to costa rica i was going to
i used to collect money on the
playground
or to take to church on sundays from all
the other kids
and at the time in schools we had
devotions and i would sit and i would
listen to everything the preacher said
on sunday
and go back to school monday morning and
begging the stunner please let me do a
devotion just sort of repeat the sermon
so in the fourth grade i was called
preacher kids used to poke fun of me all
the time it didn't bother me
because i was so inspired at the time
and a lot of it was because of miss
duncan
mrs duncan mrs duncan and we did a show
not too long ago and i had favorite
teachers on i just broke
down because first of all the first time
i realized miss duncan had a name other
than miss duncan you know
your teachers never have names her
name's mary i couldn't believe it
well i was born as i said um in rural
mississippi
in 1954 and i was born at home
and um there were not
a lot of educated people around and
my name had been chosen from the bible
my aunt ida had chosen the name but
nobody really knew how to spell it
so um it went down as orpah
on my birth certificate but people
didn't know how to pronounce it
so they put the p before the r
uh in every place else other than the
birth certificate so on the birth
certificate it is orpah
but then it got translated to oprah and
so here we are but that's great because
oprah spells harper backwards i don't
know what order spells
so
i can't believe my grandmother because i
was a child born out of wedlock
and my mother moved to the north
she's a part of that great migration to
the north um
in the late 50s and i was left with my
grandmother like so many other
black youngsters were left to be taken
care of by their grandmothers and
grandfathers
and aunts and uncles and i was one of
those children it actually
probably saved my life it is the reason
why i am where i am today because my
grandmother gave me the
foundation for success um
that i was allowed to continue to build
upon my grandmother
taught me to read and that opened the
door to all kinds of possibilities for
me and had i not been with my
grandmother
and been with my mother struggling in
the north you know moving from apartment
to apartment
i probably would not have had the
foundation that i had so i was allowed
to grow up in mississippi for the first
six years of my life and
allowed to feel
somewhat special because i was a
precocious child i guess by any
standards now
i was taught to read in an early age and
by the time i was three i was reciting
speeches
um in the church and they'd put me up on
the program and they'd say
and little mistress winfrey will render
a recitation
and i would do um jesus rose on
yesterday
hallelujah all the angels did proclaim
and all the sisters sitting in the front
row would fan themselves and turn to my
grandmother and say
hi to me this child is gifted
and i heard that enough that i started
to believe it maybe i am
i didn't even know what gifted meant but
i just thought it meant that was special
and so anytime people came over i'd
recite
i'd recite bible verses and poetry by
the time i was seven i was doing um
invictus by william ernest henley out of
the knight that covers me
black is a pitcher from pole to pole i
thank whatever gods to be for my
unconquerable soul
and at the time i was saying i don't
know what i was talking about but i do
all the motions
out of the night that covers me
and people say oh that child can speak
and so that's
you know you whatever you do a lot of
you get good at doing it and that's just
about how
this whole broadcasting career started
for me it was an
order for a long time i've been in order
to really basically all of my life
three and a half and then coming up in
the church speaking um
i did all of james wells and johnson
sermons he has a series of seven sermons
beginning with the creation and ending
with judgment
i used to do them for churches all over
the city of nashville i've
spoken at every church in nashville at
some point in my life i think
and um you sort of get known for that
other people were known for singing i
was known for talking
and uh by the time i entered college
what i really wanted to do was be an
actress but
i got hired in television and so i never
was able to make any of the play
rehearsals
story of my life
well i was living with my mother and
living under circumstances that i
that a lot of young children have to
deal with today
even we weren't living in the projects
and if you'd asked me at the time if we
were poor i probably would have said
no because when you are living it
and you don't know anything else you
think that's the way life is
and i was um raped when i was nine
by a cousin and never told anybody until
i was um in my
late twenties not only was i right my
cousin i was right by a cousin and then
later sexually molested by a friend of
the family
and then by an uncle it was just an
ongoing continuous thing
so much so that i started to think you
know this is the way life is
and not until
i'd say a year ago did i release the
shame for myself
because i was in the middle of an
interview with a woman named trudy chase
who has multiple personalities and was
severely abused
as a child i think it was on that day
that i i mean for the first time i
recognized that i was not to blame
because i was
i became a sexually promiscuous teenager
and uh as a result of that got myself
into a lot of trouble
and believed that i was responsible for
it it wasn't until
um i was 36 years old 36
that i connected the fact oh that's why
i was that way
i always blamed myself even though
intellectually i would say to other kids
i would speak to people and say
oh the child is never to blame you're
never responsible
for um molestation in your life
i still believed i was responsible
somehow that i was a bad girl
and um just released it in the middle
and so it happened on the air
so many things happen for me happened on
the air in the middle of somebody else's
experience and so i thought i was going
to have a breakdown
on television and i said you know stop
stop we've got to stop rolling cameras
and they didn't
and so i sort of got myself through it
but it was really quite traumatic for me
my openness uh is the reason why i did
not
do so well as a news reporter because i
used to go on assignments and be so open
that i would say
say to people it fires and they lost
their children that's okay you don't
have to talk to me
well then you go back to the newsroom
with the news director what do you mean
they didn't have to talk to you
i say but she just lost her child and
you know i just felt so bad so i didn't
do very well i was too
absolutely too involved too involved i
go to go to funerals of people and not
go in i wouldn't want to talk to them
disturbing
cry on the air i think the lesson
that you learn from allowing yourself to
be abused as a child
is an ongoing lesson
what i recognize is that the same thing
that
in some cases causes a child to be
abused
is the same thing that causes you know
what you to be abused as an adult
is the same thing that in your adulthood
that allows you to never be able to say
no to people
and i realize that i was the kind of
child who was always searching for
for love and affection and attention and
somebody to say
to look at me and say yes you are worthy
and
unfortunately there are adults who will
take advantage of that
and misread your intentions and i
you know just part of the process for me
as an adult has come
has been to come to recognize that
my inability as an adult female to say
no
my i call it my disease to please as a
female
is the same thing that caused me to be
victimized as a child
because many times i would get myself
into situations as an adult
where i didn't want to say no because i
didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings i
didn't want to say no because i don't
want anybody
angry with me i didn't want to say no
because i don't want people to think i'm
not
nice and it that to me has been the
greatest
lesson of my life is to recognize that i
am solely responsible for it and
um not trying to please other people not
living my life to please other people
but doing what my heart says all the
time that's the biggest lesson
for me you know the other big lesson for
me has been to learn not only do you
have the right to do whatever you want
you have the right to change your mind
which is i mean has gotten me into so
much trouble in my life
like i'd say oh but i i have to because
i said i was going to do it
and then later you think about it you
realize i shouldn't be doing this but i
said i was going to do it and i don't
want to make anybody upset
and it has taken it's taken me 37 years
to figure that out to get that straight
i think oh my goodness if i had learned
this 20 years ago
all the time i could have saved look
where i could have been look
and i you know what i think i don't know
if men have this problem
i think men who are for instance abused
sexually or physically that it manifests
outwardly in some way that their anger
and their rage
takes on a different kind of direction i
think women to a great extent
and i know many many women who were
sexually abused
internalize it and then um allow
themselves
to abuse themselves later on in life you
know you just
don't allow yourself to be all that you
can be whereas a man will will make it
more external and will be angrier
i don't believe that anything
happens without a reason i don't believe
it
and in order to believe that is the
truth you have to believe it in all
circumstances
so i say if you are re if you want to
take responsibility for your life then
you have to take it in
in all forms i i certainly wish that i
had been the kind of child who told the
first time
and so because i wasn't the kind of
child who did that
a part of my mission in life now is to
encourage every other child who's abused
you tell
you tell and if they don't believe you
you keep telling you tell everybody
until somebody listens to you and if
nothing else that's
that's part of um something good that
came out of that experience for me
because i don't want it to happen to
another child i don't want another child
to be afraid
of saying this is what happened to me
the greatest thing about what i do
for me is that i'm in a position to
change people's lives
it is the most incredible platform
for influence that you can imagine and
it's something that i hold
in great esteem and take
full responsibility for i mean i do
every show
in prayer not down on my knees praying
but i do it in
in sort of before every show um
a mental meditation in order to
get the correct message across because
you're dealing with millions of people
every day
and it's very easy for something to be
misinterpreted
and so my intention is always regardless
of what the show is whether it's about
sibling rivalry or wife battering or
children of divorce for people to see
within each show that you are
responsible for your life
that although there may be tragedy in
your life there's always a possibility
to triumph
it doesn't matter who you are where you
come from and that the ability to
triumph begins with you
always always it's a it's a glorious
thing i mean i i feel
i feel very blessed that you know when
as a kid
when i was growing up and especially in
the third and fourth grade i always
wanted to be a minister
and preach and be a missionary and then
for a while after miss duncan's fourth
grade class i wanted to be a fourth
grade teacher and i think in many ways
that i have been able to fulfill
all of that i feel that my show is a
ministry
we just don't take up a collection and i
feel that it is it is a teaching tool
without preaching to people about it i
really do that is my intent
that is my intent and i couldn't do
the kinds of shows that i see some other
people do i just i couldn't
and i've reached a level of maturity in
in this work myself there was a time
when i first started out
that i would say i was far more
exploited you just put a person on for
the purpose of having
i wouldn't do that anymore i was in the
middle of a show
with um some white supremacists
skinheads ku klux klan members
and in the middle of that show i just
had a flash i thought this is doing
nobody any good
nobody this is me and i had rationalized
the show by saying oh
people need to know that these kinds of
people are out here
i won't do it anymore i just won't do it
there's certain things i won't do
satanism of any kind
any kind of satan worship i won't do i
no longer wanted to give a platform
to um to racist i just don't
because i think no good can come of it
so if you don't know that it exists i'm
sorry you won't hear it here
but that's growth for me i did a show uh
tape to show last year
with a guy who was a mass murderer who
killed 80 people i did the
whole interview and i had the family
zone of some of the people he killed in
the middle of it
i thought i shouldn't be doing this this
is not going to help anybody
it's a it's a voyeuristic look it's that
um at a serial killer
but what what good is it going to do
anybody and
deny it
i loved books so much as a child they
were
my outlet to the world and i still do
people ask me what do you do in your
spare time
that's what i do i read
i as a i mean i just there's so many
books there was i went through a period
of lois linski books
she wrote strawberry girl and um
lots of stories about these little
peasant children and for i went through
a period where i wanted to be them and
what i would do is i'd read the
character
and whatever book i was reading that's
who i wanted to be that week i read a
book in the third grade about katie john
and who hated boys and she had freckles
well lord knows i'm not gonna have
freckles no wait no how
but i tried to put some on and i went
through this my katie john phase
um i think the book that moved me the
most growing up was a tree grows in
brooklyn
oh and uh because i had a tree in my
backyard too so i mean i identified with
her i just thought well this this
is my life and um
then i discovered my angelus i know why
the caged birds sing
and i thought well first of all it's the
first time i'd ever encountered
another woman who had been
um sexually abused i could i couldn't
imagine
couldn't imagine it i felt that way too
when i read the color purple
i just i put the red the first page of
the color purple
put the book down and wept i could not
believe it but someone had put this in
writing
it's unbelievable yes to know that
you're not the only one because
at all all this time you carry this
burden you think
nobody else in the world has been
through this nobody else is as bad as
you
and then you discover that you're not so
bad after all it's an amazing thing
very strict father but i mean i love him
for it
today i mean at the time i thought i
couldn't imagine a human being being so
strict
and what was he being so strict for um
yes he was a big influence in my life
just very
not even as much strict as he was had
some concerns
about me making the best of my life
and would not accept anything less than
what he felt was my best
he i remember my father saying to me you
can't bring c's in this house because
you're not a c
student if you were a c student you
could because
i'm not trying to make you do or be
anything that you can't be but you're
not a c student you're a student so
that's what we expect in this house
and it was just so matter of fact and
i mean i knew he was not faking it one
bit so i just i never even tried it i
never
even like tried to bring nlc because
i realized them it's just not acceptable
and when i was living with my mother i
was very rebellious
i was as i said promiscuous and
rebellious
and did everything i could get away with
including faking a robbery at my house
to save my glasses and my dog one time i
remember
you know stomping the glasses in the
floor and putting myself in the hospital
and acting out the whole scene
um i used to pull all kinds of pranks
ran away from home
i got to my father's house i never told
and i used to lie to my mother all the
time i'd stay out
make up stories i moved to my father's
house i never told another lie
i just because i knew it wasn't going to
be accepted i knew like
okay it stops right here i needed
structure and attention
i require a lot of attention um
and now i get the attention of 20
million people it's a little too much
attention
it's a lot of attention yeah i wanted it
i got it i got some attention i tell you
i got picked as two students in the
state
and i think i was 16 years old at the
time for a white house conference on
youth
i was being interviewed by a local radio
station
and a year later
this is i was 17 at this time there was
a contest being sponsored in town called
the miss fire prevention contest and the
guy who interviewed me at the radio
station his name was john heidelberg
remembered me he thought he just
remembered that i'd given him a nice
interview when i was a kid
uh and they needed a teenager so he said
why
what about that girl that was here last
year yes
and so i i was all of a sudden
representing this radio station in the
misfire prevention contest
where all you had to do is walk parade
around in an evening gown
answer some questions about your life
you know it's just
it was one of those little teeny tiny
beauty pageants well
nobody expected me to win the pageant
because we were still negroes at the
time
and um i've been colored negro black now
i'm african-american
um so we're still negros and i was the
only negro
in a pageant of all red-haired girls and
it's the misfire prevention contest so
the lord knows i'm not going to win so i
was very relaxed about it i thought
well i got a new gown and this is great
so when it came time for the um
question and answer period they asked
what would you do if you had a million
dollars and
one girl said if i had a million dollars
i'd buy my mom a fridge tire
my dad a truck someone else says they
had a million dollars they'd buy their
their uh brother above a motorcycle
because he's always wanted one and
they'd give it to the poor
and i said all totally relaxed because
i'm not gonna win anyway
if i had a million dollars i would be a
spending fool
i'm not quite sure what i would spend it
on but i would spend spin spin
spin and fool well i ended up winning
and there was another question about
what i would like to do
with my life my career well everybody
wanted to be a nurse or a teacher
and i made this big speech about
broadcast journalism mainly because
i had seen barbara walters that morning
on the today show
so i thought nah say what can i be i
can't be a nurse can't be a teacher
because that's what they were
so i said i wanted to be a broadcast
journalist because i believed in the
truth
was interested in uh proclaiming the
truth to the world
i won the contest well what a shock
negro me
and that was the beginning of my
broadcasting career because when i went
back to the tel
the radio station to pick up my longing
watch and my digital clock
they asked me would i like to hear my
voice on tape he said would you like to
hear your voice on tape
just sort of as a little streak for me
come here let's listen to your voice
and i started to read now i've been
reading since i was three
they couldn't believe how well i read
and i was hired there
so somebody said sit down and read and
they said come here this girl read and
then someone else and before i knew
there were four guys standing in the
room listen to me read
and i was hired 17 years old in radio
at the time i was still a senior so i
had to only work after school
so i finish get there by 3 30 and i do
on the air newscast well all my friends
just hated me because they're cutting
grass
and my sophomore year in college
someone heard me on the radio and said
we heard you on the radio would you be
interested in working in television
and i turned them down three times and
the third time
i had a college professor i said they
keep calling me to be on television
and i know if i do television i'll never
finish school
so he said don't you know that's why
people go to school so that somebody can
keep calling them
you nitwit so i went and i interviewed
for the job and chris clark gave me the
job
i interviewed for the job in television
never i've never even been behind the
scenes tablets
i was 19 at the time so i decided to
pretend to be barbara walters
because that's how i'd gotten into this
in the first place so i sat
there pretending with barbara in my head
did everything i thought she would do
that i was hired
it's amazing as a matter of fact it was
because of the riots of the 70s that i
think they were looking for
minorities they were trying to fulfill
all of their
quotas and programs and so i was hired
as a token
and had to take the heat from my college
classmates i went to an all black
college
with them calling me a token and i used
to say yeah but i'm a paid token
and i recognized that uh and at the time
i didn't even know it was a pun
i'm saying yeah but they yeah they pay
me um
i was very defensive about it because
i've always had to live
with the notion of other
uh black people saying oh for any amount
of
success that you achieved they say oh
you're trying to be white you're trying
to talk white you're trying to be white
and so forth
which is such a ridiculous notion to me
since you look in the mirror every
morning and you're black
there's a black face uh in your
reflection so
i you know had to live with that whole
thing of
you know trying to and it was very
uncomfortable for me at first because
when i
first started as a broadcaster i was 19
very insecure
thrown into television pretending to be
barbara walters looking nothing like her
and still going to college so i do all
my classes in the morning
from eight to one and then the afternoon
i worked from two to ten
and did the six o'clock news and would
stay up and study and all that stuff
you know until one two or three o'clock
in the morning and then just start the
routine all over again
and my classmates were so jealous of me
that i remember like
taking my little 115 paycheck and
um at the time i thought it was really a
lot but
taking 115 and trying to appease them i
would like
oh anytime anybody needed money i was
always offering oh you need ten dollars
or taking them out for pizza ordering
pizza for the class and things like that
trying to that whole disease to please
that's where it was the worst for me i
think because
i wanted to be accepted by them and
could not be because
first of all i didn't have the time they
wanted i wanted me to pledge and i
didn't have the time to pledge i was
i didn't have the time to be a part of
all the other college activities or a
part of that whole
lifestyle and it was very difficult for
me socially really one of the worst
times of my life because i was trying to
fit in
in school and be a part of that culture
but also trying to build a career
in television
well now i think it's courageous and the
interesting thing about it is
if you were telling me my life story and
it was about somebody else i'd say oh
how courageous
it's very difficult for me to give
myself that credit
i mean um it's very difficult for me to
even
see myself as successful because i still
see myself as in the process
of becoming successful to me successful
is getting to the point where you are
absolutely comfortable with yourself
and it does not matter how many things
you have acquired
the ability to learn to say no and not
to feel guilty about it
to me is about the greatest success i
have achieved
the fact that i have you know in the
public side done whatever
is fine it's all a part of a process for
for growing for me
but to me to have the in the kind of
internal strength
and internal courage it takes to say no
i will not
let you treat me this way is what
success is all about
it's the same thing that prevents you
from being abused as a child
that prevents you from being abused as
an adult that allows you to build
success for yourself
i will not be treated this way i demand
only the best for myself
you are worthy to say no you were that
it's okay if you say no
it's okay if you say no and then people
don't like you that's really okay the
important thing is
how you feel about what you're doing how
you feel about yourself
it's a long struggle though it's a long
struggle
and i'm just hoping that you know in the
work that i do on the show
and the speaking that i do around the
country and that
young people who are watching this can
get the lesson sooner than i did
because it's painful because you keep
repeating it over and over and over
until you get it right and what i found
is that every time you have to repeat
the lesson
it gets worse because it's you know it's
i call it
god trying to get your attention the
universe trying to get your attention so
we can get your attention the first time
so we're gonna have to hit you a little
harder this time so
i'm still doing it i'm still learning oh
it seems worse because it gets worse
yeah i say this i say uh many times i
say the universe is always trying to get
your attention i use
inner universe and god interchangeably
is trying to get your attention and
sometimes
it starts out any major problem you
encounter
it always started out as a whisper by
the time it gets to be a storm
you have been you've had a pebble knock
you upside the head
you've had a brick you had a brick wall
you've had the house to fall down and
before you know it
you're in the eye of the storm but long
before you're in the eye of the storm
you've had many warnings like little
clues
so now my goal in life is is to not to
have to hit the eye of a storm
is to is to catch it in a whisper to get
it the first time
and getting it comes from understanding
your i think the thing
the one thing that has allowed me to
certainly achieve
both material success and spiritual
success
is the ability to listen to my instinct
i call it my inner voice
it doesn't matter what you call it
nature instinct higher power
but the ability to understand
the difference between what your heart
is saying what your head is saying
i now always go with the heart even when
my head is saying oh but this is the
rational thing this is really what you
should do
i always go with that little feeling
the feeling i am where i am today
because i have allowed myself
to listen to my feelings
my ability to get people to open up is
only attributed i think to the fact that
there's a common bond in the human
experience
we all want the same things and um
i know that i really do know
that i am no different than anybody else
now
one of my greatest struggles in life
has been to come to recognize that i am
as worthy as the next guy
and i think that the moment you start
thinking that
um you're better than somebody else
then you've lost sight of who you are
because the truth of the matter is
we're all the same and i know that i
really know that
and i think people sense that and so
people i'm telling you i don't
i don't see myself certainly as a um
as a celebrity as a star because people
are so familiar with me
it's not like with other celebrities i
see people react to other people and
it's not like this to me they say
people say hey we're coming over and sit
down every day at the end of the show
they say you want to go to lunch you
want to come to my house
we're fixing so-and-so for dinner i mean
it's just if i'm sitting out at a
restaurant people come up and they sit
down and bring their children it's just
very familiar
and i think that the ability to um the
reason why people open up so much on my
show is because i open up
they feel comfortable doing it and they
know that um
i am not going to ridicule them i want
everybody on the show even if i disagree
with you
to leave with a sense of dignity to
maintain their own dignity
you know a lot of people like critics
for instance don't get it
there's some people who you know who
criticize the show now i take criticism
very seriously
there have been i can't say that i'm one
of those people who does not read
criticism
because i do and if someone criticizes
something and it strikes a nerve with me
i will then move to correct it i mean i
have written critics who have said
things that i thought
uh were very valid recently someone
criticized us for airing a show
on mothers who had gone through
postpartum depression and
um had killed their children and they
were saying that the show should not
have aired in the afternoon because
other children watching
and i have i mean i absolutely agree
with that i think that's a very valid
point we should have considered that
that's one of the things i did not think
about
i'm thinking that i'm going to help all
these mothers who are going through this
but that person was absolutely right so
if the if the criticism is valid and uh
comes from a point of view of being well
thought out and not just to attack
i mean i accept it accept it and i
usually get better as a result of it
critics have actually helped me to get
better
i am of all things in my life i would
say i'm a truth seeker
i'm a truth seeker and i believe that
you know the cliche
the truth shall set you free i
absolutely believe that
and so if you're telling me the truth
i accept it and will move on it uh the
thing that has caused me the greatest
dismay or disappointment in this
this life has been the fact that people
can write things about you that are not
true
it's astounding to me it's astounding
and i don't want to sound like you know
one of those people who's
you know in the public complaining about
it but it is just astounding to me that
it can happen
and had it not happened to me i would
not believe somebody else complaining
about it i'd say well some of it has to
be true
and that is um it's really my only gripe
about
being who i am right now is that people
can say things and print them
and they're not true that you can just
sit up and make up stories it goes
against
everything i believe in because i really
don't care what you print about me if
it's the truth
i think i've adjusted pretty well i
think i'm really uh
actually i'm probably one of the most
balanced people i know to live under
such a microscope i think
and i think that you have to put it all
in perspective and understand who you
really are
and who i really am is not some person
who's you know just on television every
day that is something that i do
and what i think is important is for
people to
not to look at my life or anybody else's
life particularly celebrities because
i think adoration is unhealthy
and you know when you look at the list
of um
of people that students choose to admire
in this country
i think that there's so many people who
do such incredible things
incredible things i mean i was you know
last year met the guy who split the
neutrons
and two and they do things you think my
gut they do things
to atoms that you can't even pronounce
and i think well you know wouldn't it be
wonderful
if those kinds of people got publicity
would it be wonderful if
we paid attention to some of the more
humanitarian things that are going on
things that are really of value i think
just because you you know you can do a
video and you can dance really well or
you can sit on a talk show and you talk
to people that is not necessarily
to be held in the highest of esteem you
know because that isn't what makes
makes um life meaningful it really is
not
i think the most important thing um to
get ahead
falls back to what what i truly believe
in and then that is
the ability to seek truth in your life
and that's on all forms
you have to be honest with yourself you
can be
pursuing a profession because your
parents say it's the best thing you can
be pursuing a profession because
you think you'll make a lot of money you
can be pursuing a profession because you
think you're going to get
a lot of attention none of that will do
you any good
if you're not being honest with yourself
and the honesty comes from your
your natural born instinct will tell you
when you're doing something
whether or not this feels right you feel
a sense of accomplishment
and fulfillment and worthiness
to the world in such a way that you know
you're doing the right thing you don't
have to ask anybody when you're doing
the right thing
you don't have to say you think this is
okay it's like
and it works on every level whether or
not you're going to a party or you're
choosing a dress or you're choosing a
friend
if you ever have to say you think this
is okay chances are it is not
because that's your instinct trying to
get you to ask
yourself that question maybe this isn't
okay
i feel that
luck is preparation meeting opportunity
because
the reason i feel so strongly about that
and it's not just a
you know a saying for me i was hired
in television in 1973
right after the riots of 7172
and other blacks
and female people were hired at the same
time
people accused me of being a token at
the time it didn't really bother me
because
i realized that i was going to stay
there once i got there i realized
nobody's getting me out of here this is
not just a phase for me
and so i sort of began to create my own
luck
i i i said i knew how to edit when i
didn't i said i knew how
to report on stories i went to my first
city council meeting
i wasn't quite sure of what to do but i
had told the news director that i did
so then what you have to do is be
willing
to admit that you know nothing so i
walked into the city council meeting and
i said
i announced to everybody there this is
my first day on the job and i don't know
anything please help me because i've
told the news director channel 5
that i know what i'm doing please help
me and they did
and from that point on i mean all those
councilmen became
my my friends i come in the council
meeting and they they helped me out
um and and i realized now it was because
of my willingness to say
i don't know it but if you will just you
know if you'll just help me
out so so that i learned and i also
learned that when uh one of the biggest
lessons i've learned recently is that
when you don't know what to do you
should do nothing
until you figure out what to do because
a lot of times you feel like
you're pressed against the wall and
you've got to make a decision you never
have to do anything
no don't know what to do do nothing i
wait and
that has been a big lesson to to be
willing
to be still with myself and trust
myself and my higher power to um
to help me make the right decision and
to not
feel pressured see i think
you know we create stress for ourselves
because you feel like you have to do
what other people you have to do it you
have to
i don't feel that anymore all the
mistakes i've made in my life
i've made because i was trying to please
other people
every one of there's not one that i've
made because i did something because i
really wanted to do this for myself
every mistake i've ever made is because
i went outside of myself
to do something for somebody else that i
should not have to please them
just for the purpose of pleasing them
not good
yeah it was a lot of trouble just to get
to be an actress uh
i ended up building my own studio
because when i was shooting the color
purple
i was not allowed the kind of freedom
that was necessary to do that work and
what i really want to do
is to create films for myself
and other people that uplift
enlighten encourage and entertain people
and in order to do that i need time so i
was working
under a situation where i only had so
much time to do it
so when the studio became about as i say
to me success is a process
there was this empty studio old vacant
lot available
and um i have a partner who said to me
um you know there's a studio available
and if you take over your own show well
it had never occurred to me that that
could happen
the studio came to be as a roundabout
way for me to get to be an actress i've
been trying to be one since
i was three and it happened as a
as a part of an ongoing process for me
when
you know i am
it's much easier for me to make major
life
multi-million dollar decisions than it
is to decide
on a carpet for my front porch that's
the truth
i was in the kmart store and i couldn't
decide between the ones with the kittens
and the ducks i had them all laid out
their own they're 5.99 a piece
it took me longer to make that decision
as to which
map i would have for when you first
welcome friends
welcome welcome to my house all that you
know
uh took me longer to make that decision
than it did to decide
to get my own studio um i have a lawyer
manager who uh he and i are now partners
uh who came to me and said you know
um you can own your own show
and before he said that to me i mean i
thought on my own i just totally
dismissed it
because the idea oh how am i on my own
show i have a contract what am i going
to do
um he said you're on your own show and
there is a studio that
uh the old fred nile studio that is
going to
become available i mean it needs a lot
of work and
i thought nothing of it at the time i
totally dismissed it because
he was always making projections and
coming up with ideas and
i just thought this okay i'll let him
dream on just as my
speech coach had said to me many years
ago dream on
because i had a really solid contract
when i was shooting the color purple i
didn't have enough time
to shoot it i was begging for time
because i realized that what we were
doing was something very special
but i it's very difficult to convince
you know
news people that oh no it's really it's
really not what you think
so the studio
came about as a result of me wanting
more time and creativity
and control for myself
i bought the studio so that i would be
able to act
and do the show at the same time so that
i would be able to do
two things that were very important to
me the show is very important to me
because it is
a platform from being able to make a
difference in people's lives
to influence them to change for the
better
and so i don't want to give that up
until it's time
and i will know when it's time i don't
want to be the kind of person that stays
in the ring too long
and gets punched drunk from the
experience i just want to be able to
do it for as long as it works and i know
it's not going to work forever
and for as long as i can be of influence
and make a difference then that's what i
want to do but i also want to act
because i think
that being able to create work that for
one uh puts the the black cultural
experience on screen that's very
important to me
i've been black i've been female all my
life that's the only thing i know
so i know that experience i'm i love
being a woman
and i love being a black woman i love i
mean i read mostly
female literature because i mean i just
find that i'm drawn to it if i'm in a
bookstore i'm just sort of like kind of
drawn to the women writers because
because that's what i know and so i want
to be able to put that on screen
i want to be able to do work that
encourages enlightens uplifts and
entertains people
there are some there's work i would not
do i get offered
a number of scripts and have chosen not
to do them because
unfortunately i'm in the position that i
don't have to work
for the sake of working uh to me it's
far
more important to uh the process of the
work
is far more important to me in many
cases than the end result
i mean once the picture is finished
that's fine but to me the
the process of working on it for me
every day the process of working on a
show
and being in the midst of the show being
right in the heart of it
is far more stimulating fulfilling and
exciting to me that oh
finish the show then i'm on to the next
thing
that's so interesting to me because i
read that too and
i read that and i think what does this
mean it was so interesting like
one day i made i was on the forbes list
and we just arrived we just kind of
somebody said oh i saw you on the forbes
list
and it was like just it just was a it
just was another thing that had happened
it wasn't like oh my god i made the
forbes list what i find though is once
you make it
there's a competitive streak in you
because now i go well where was i on the
list
so first i didn't care about making it
now now i wanna
i remember calling up bill cosby saying
could you loan me some money so i could
be number five
because because i got beat out by new
kids on the block could you please give
me a few
but um other than that other than that
it doesn't it doesn't register
it is very difficult for me to see
myself as other people
see me it's very difficult i don't know
what that means i don't know
what being oprah winfrey means to other
people from the outside because i just
because i still feel the same i really
do i feel the same as i did when i was
22 and and struggling i still because
it's it's the struggle has taken on a
different form
for me the struggle is is more of an
inner self struggle trying to find the
truth for myself
now than it is trying to get enough
money to pay my light bill
and so actually it was easier trying to
find enough money to pay my light bill
then discovering what the truth of your
life is all about
and so i just this whole what other
people view as successful is not what my
idea of success is
and i don't mean to belittle it at all i
think it's really nice to be able to
have
nice things what material success
does is provide you with the ability i
think
to concentrate on other things that
really matter
and that is being able to make a
difference not only in your own life but
in other people's lives
that's really all it's good for because
you don't you no longer have to focus
your attention on
how you're going to pay your car note
and whether or not you're going to sign
your last name
so that when the check gets there they
can send it back to you you can say oh
forgot to sign it
you know you have to play those games
anymore so you really have the time
and the attention to focus on other
things and the big
question for me in my life is now
that i have achieved some material
success is
what do i do with how do i use this
to make a difference for me education is
about the most important thing
because ha because that was my that is
what
liberated me education is what liberated
me
the ability to read saved my
life i would have been an entirely
different person had i not been taught
to read when i was
at at an early age my entire life
experience
uh my ability to believe in myself and
even in my darkest moments
of sexual abuse and being physically
abused and so forth
i knew there was another way i knew
there was a way out i knew there was
another kind of life because i'd read
about it
i'd write about it i knew there were
other places and and there was
another way of being and so it saved my
life
so that's why i now focus my attention
on trying to do the same thing for other
people
education i don't think you ever stop
giving
i really don't i think it's an ongoing
process and it's not just about
being able to write a check it's being
able to touch somebody's life in such a
way that mrs duncan touched mine it's
being able to
make a child see the light in him or
herself
making someone else see that for
themselves
i know that if
i didn't have the money listening to
somebody who had it
i probably not to believe them
because you can't believe it because if
you don't have money and you're just
trying to make ends meet
you think if you just could make ends
meet that would make everything all
right for you
what i know is is that if you do work
that you
love and work that fulfills you the rest
will come
and that i truly believe that the reason
i've been able to be
so financially successful is because my
focus
has never ever for one minute been money
and the fact that the money has come has
really surprised me i've been
just really surprised and delighted and
very pleased and in many times
overwhelmed by it
but the money has never been the focus
the reason you know
i think if you know if you're on the
road to success
is if you would do your job
and not be paid for it and i would do
this job
and take on a second job to make ends
meet if nobody paid me
just for the opportunity to do it that's
how you know you're doing the right
thing
i have people that i trust and one of
the things that um
if i may pat myself on the back for is
that i try to surround myself with
people who are smarter than i am
i think that the ability
to be as good as you can be comes from
understanding
who you are and what you can and cannot
do and what you can't do
is far more important than what you can
do if what you can't do is going to keep
you from
flying as high as you can now when i my
my lawyer first came to me and said you
can own your own show it literally took
the
ceiling off my brain because i had never
even
thought that high before i never even
thought that was possible
and everybody needs somebody in their
life to say yes you can do it i have a
niece
pardon me i have a niece who's um 15 who
several years ago i said to her the same
thing my father said to me i said
you were too smart to get c's i mean i
heard my father speaking
crossing the street one day and she was
talking about her grades you're just
you're too smart to do that
you could you could be an a student and
she said you really think i can oh of
course
so you're such a bright person and she
started getting a's
and said to me a year later nobody ever
told me i could
and i you know i think
that one of the most important lessons
to learn is that we are all responsible
for our lives
but nobody gets to this life alone
everybody needs somebody to show them a
way out
or way up everybody does see i feel best
in surroundings where other people are
smarter than i am because i feel like
i can always learn something from them
um one of the other big lessons i've
learned particularly in business i think
you have a responsibility to yourself
to learn as much about your business as
you can
and so i signed every check although it
is now tedious because
um the builds that come in from running
maintaining a studio everything from
federal express to xerox to every tape
that needs
repaired and so forth it gets to be a
lot
i've stacks and piles of checks to do
and i know that there are a lot of
successful people who don't do that
i still have a tenement mentality i've
been
very very poor in my life and so the
idea of having
uh money and not being responsible and
knowing how much money you have and
keeping control of it
is not something that i personally can
accept i know that there are other
people who can but it's
it's just it is not a possibility for me
i need to know where it is i mean there
are times i think i want to go to the
bank and say
show it to me because you know just
seeing it on a piece of paper
anybody could print out a piece of paper
so um
yeah i watch it very carefully and um
try to maintain responsibility for it
but my success in business has come you
know when i first started
being a quote business woman i worried
about how do you do this
and i realized that you do this the same
way
as you do anything else you be fair
try to be honest with other people and
you be fair
14 hour days 15.
12 hours a 12-hour day is a is a a
12-hour day is a short day for me
i feel like after a 12-hour day what am
i going to do with the rest of my day
i get home i don't know what to do with
myself because
i have all of this time left over i
don't know what to do
so i really i feel most comfortable
working
14 to 16 hours because then at least
i can go home usually i take a bubble
bath i love bubbles
now that's the one big luxury i've given
myself is that now
that i've attained some material success
i will use an entire
half a bottle a bubble bath at one time
really extravagant
and i'm really particular about the kind
of bubbles too like
i don't want the kind that drip down off
of your arm poor quality bubbles i like
the kind that cover your arm and the
bubbles stay
um so i'll go home and take a public
bath and usually get in bed with a pile
of books
pile pile of books papers magazines i
have to read a lot for the show
most of the shows questions though come
from my own natural
whatever i want to know about a
particular subject
and i find i'm best in situations where
i just go right off the top of my head
right
i ask what i want to know and that's
what you know
what being in television for a long time
i think and also getting comfortable
with yourself
allows you to do because if you make a
mistake you make a mistake
it's okay to make a mistake
i could tell you it's like steve martin
has a joke about
how some people go to the drugstore and
they sell flare pins he says and i get
paid for
doing this and i feel the same way i
feel like i would do it if i didn't get
a dime for it
and that's why you know you're doing the
right thing because
it doesn't even feel like work doesn't
feel like work
you
