Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi to a single mother. She was left as an infant with her grandmother who was strict and sometimes abusive. Her grandmother worked as a maid and was so poor that she sometimes dressed little Oprah in dresses made of potato sacks.
When she was 6, Oprah was sent back to live with her mother, with whom she experienced a troubled adolescence and faced many trials. At the age of 13, she ran away from home. When she returned, she was sent to Lincoln High School in Milwaukee where she distinguished herself as a good student. She subsequently earned a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she studied communication.
During her college years she was offered an anchoring job at a local radio station and a few years later as a news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV.
Shortly after this she joined a local talk show ‘People are Talking’ and hosted ‘AM Chicago’ in 1985. Within a few months the show’s ratings shot up from last place to the top spot, making it the highest-rated talk show in Chicago at the time.
Shortly afterwards she began hosting her own show called ‘The Oprah Winfrey show’, which first aired on September 8, 1986. The show became immensely popular and aired for 25 seasons from 1986 to 2011. It turned Oprah into the ‘queen of talk shows’ and made her a billionaire. Over the years Oprah transitioned her show into a media and business empire.
She has been hailed as the most influential woman of her generation by Life Magazine and has consistently found a place in Forbes list of America’s richest. She was awarded America’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2013 by President Barack Obama and is estimated to have a net worth of US $2.8 billion.
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