Authors: Kitty Kelley
Oprah (57 page)
“Unfortunately, we only got forty thousand signatures…because a lot of men, black and white, refused to sign…and a lot of religious people would not sign because they said Oprah was not married to Stedman and she gave a bad example to our young people by her lifestyle. I believe we all sin and come short of the glory of God, but these folks, mostly from black churches, and all conservative and
law-abiding, felt very strongly that Oprah had put herself above the laws of God. I was stunned, but I’m afraid there are strong feelings against her in our [African American] community….Of the forty thousand signatures we were able to get, most were white, not black. We got a lot of publicity and raised awareness for her getting the prize, but in the end I guess God did not want it to happen.”
First Lady Barbara Bush on
The Oprah Winfrey Show,
October 23, 1989, discussing her life in politics. Oprah had asked Mrs. Bush to appear on her show after she attended her first White House state dinner in June 1989.
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Photo Credit: Presidential Library of George H.W. Bush.
)
President Bill Clinton greets Oprah and Quincy Jones on June 13, 1994, at the White House state dinner for Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan. Stedman, a confirmed Republican, would not attend, so Oprah invited her good friend.
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Photo Credit: Presidential Library of William J. Clinton.
)
Former South African president Nelson Mandela with Oprah in 2002 when she asked what she could do for him. “Build me a school,” he said. Five years and $40 million later, she opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.
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Photo Credit: Media24/Gallo Images/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
)
Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver, and Oprah campaigning for Barack Obama on February 3, 2008, at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. After the rally, Oprah, who believed in the tenets of
The Secret,
returned home and created a vision board (see it, believe it, achieve it). She put Obama’s picture in the middle of the board alongside a picture of the dress she wanted to wear to his inauguration.
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Photo Credit: David McNew/Getty Images.
)
The front page of the conservative
New York Post
interprets Oprah’s political endorsement of Barack Obama for president, December 9, 2007.
(
Photo Credit: New York Post.
)
The satirical cover of
The New Republic
following Oprah’s trip to Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel announcing his book
Night
as her book club selection for May 24, 2006. She sells the DVD of that trip to the concentration camp at the Oprah Store for $30.
(
Photo Credit: Drew Friedman.
)
OPRAH’S FAVORITE CELEBRITIES
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Photo Credit: Peter Kramer/Getty Images.
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Tom Cruise
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Photo Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.
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Maya Angelou
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Photo Credit: E. Neitzel/Getty Images.
)
Michael Jackson
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Photo Credit: Sylvia Linares/Getty Images
)
Diane Sawyer
(
Photo Credit: James Devaney/Getty Images.
)
