Oprah_ A Biography Part 24

Seeing herself in each little girl, she said, "I want them to be surrounded by beauty because beauty does inspire. I want this to be a place of honor for them because these girls have never been treated with kindness....This will be their safe place, a place to flourish free of violence, abuse and deprivation--a place of honor....I want their parents to know they can trust me with their girls."

At that time, the girls' impoverished parents saw Oprah as the personification of goodness, for she was giving their daughters a chance for a better life--a gift they could never afford. Only later would some feel anger and bitter disappointment. Oprah would have her regrets as well, and be forced to admit that she had spent too much time prettying her school and not enough effort vetting the faculty entrusted with protecting the girls. "I had been paying attention to all of the wrong things," she said. "I built that school from the outside in when what really mattered was the inside out."

As part of that "outside" focus, Oprah orchestrated a worldwide publicity campaign for her school's opening that captured more attention than a moon launch, putting her on the cover of People People and the front pages of newspapers around the globe. and the front pages of newspapers around the globe.

She was featured in a two-hour CNN special by Anderson Cooper and in special reports on all network newscasts, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show on on CBS, CNN's American Morning, ET, American Morning, ET, and and Extra. Extra. There were articles in There were articles in Time, Newsweek, Time, Newsweek, and, of course, O O magazine and its spinoff magazine and its spinoff O at Home, O at Home, and a prime-time special on ABC and a prime-time special on ABC t.i.tled Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy. Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy. There was so much There was so much hoopla surrounding the opening of Oprah's sumptuous school that the state funeral of Gerald Ford, the thirty-eighth president of the United States, on the same day seemed merely a somber footnote.

A few weeks before Christmas, on HollywoodReporter.com, Ray Richmond was composing his 2006 gift list "for challenged media figures." For Oprah he wished "a conversation that isn't all about her and her uncompromising, sublime wonderfulness." At the same time, she was sending large, elaborate invitations to two hundred guests to celebrate New Year's Eve with her in Johannesburg. All received an itinerary of what was in store--elegant hotel suites, high teas, c.o.c.ktail parties, candlelit dinners in the bush, a safari, and a five-course African feast of food, wine, and music on New Year's Eve at the Palace of the Lost City, in Sun City, with the Soweto Gospel Choir performing. She asked each guest to bring a personally inscribed book for her school's library.

Planes began arriving that weekend, disgorging movie stars, rock stars, and television stars: Tina Turner, Chris Rock, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Spike Lee, Sidney Poitier, Chris Tucker, Tyler Perry, Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson, Kenneth ("Babyface") Edmonds, Star Jones, Patti LaBelle, Cicely Tyson, Quincy Jones, Reuben Cannon, Kimberly Elise, Anna Deavere Smith, BeBe Winans, Suzanne De Pa.s.se, Andrew Young, India.Arie, Holly Robinson Peete, Al Roker, Diane Sawyer, and n.o.bel laureate w.a.n.gari Maathai. All came to honor Oprah and her school.

In addition to the celebrities, Oprah also invited her father, but not her mother.

She paid tribute to Vernon during her opening-day speech by asking him to stand up.

"What you have seen I have done, and what you have heard I have done. None of this could have been possible without my father." Vernon Winfrey was proud to be acknowledged in the presence of Nelson Mandela. "I stood up and turned around real slow, where they could see me well," he said later. "It brought tears to my eyes, her giving me credit for it. It was true. It wouldn't have been possible if she had not come back to me, and she gave me credit for that."

For the grand inauguration on January 2, 2007, Oprah wore a long pink silk taffeta ball gown with her hair softly curled and pulled back from her face to show gleaming dollops of big pink diamonds dangling from her ears. She stood in front of 152 little girls dressed in green uniforms, white blouses, white socks, and brown Mary Janes.

They looked like flower girls flanking a bride.

["In my] pink dress with the pink diamonds and the girls I felt like people say they feel on their wedding day," Oprah recalled. "I really literally felt I got married 152 times."

Opening her arms to the girls' families, her celebrity guests, and reporters from around the world, she said, "Welcome to the proudest, greatest day of my life." With tears in her eyes, she spoke movingly. "I know what it feels like to grow up poor, to grow up feeling you are not loved. I want to be able to give back to people who were like I was when I was growing up....The reason I wanted to build a school for girls is because I know that when you educate a girl you begin to change the face of a nation. Girls become women and they educate their girls and their boys. Girls who are educated are less likely to get diseases like HIV and AIDS--a pandemic in South Africa....What I wanted to do is give an opportunity to girls who were like me--girls who were poor, who had come from disadvantaged circ.u.mstances, but girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty, disease, and life circ.u.mstances could dim that light."

Moved to tears, the audience applauded Oprah, grateful that she had opened her heart to these youngsters who she vowed would save their country and enrich the world.

Yet some in Africa later criticized her for spending so much for so few, and others in America, aghast at the luxuries she had bestowed on her "daughters," berated her for not helping poor children in the United States. "Everybody is calling it lavish," said Oprah. "I call it comfortable."

The difference between "lavish" and "comfortable" could be attributed to the difference between ordinary people and a billionaire who paid $50 million for her mansion on forty-two acres in Montecito, California, which, according to the Los Angeles Los Angeles Times, was one of the highest prices ever paid for a private residence in the United States. was one of the highest prices ever paid for a private residence in the United States.

She then poured $14 million into renovations, making her mansion, which she first named "Tara II" then changed to "The Promised Land," worth $64 million.

With commendable calm, Oprah explained to her critics that she was giving to South Africa because the country was young, only twelve years out of apartheid. She also said that with an entire generation decimated by AIDS, the country's children needed to be educated in order to save their nation. When South African reporters asked her why almost all her students were black, Oprah insisted the school was "open to everyone...to all girls who are disadvantaged." The reporters persisted, asking if there was an attempt to keep out white students. Oprah snapped: "I don't think I have to appease the white people [9.2 percent] of this country." Then a white reporter asked about the criticism she was receiving from whites. Again, she responded evenly: "I find it interesting that white people are concerned about me educating black girls." The chorus of carps continued, and after a few months Oprah spoke sharply in an interview with BET to all her critics: "To h.e.l.l with your criticism," she said. "I don't care what you have to say about what I did. I did it."

Within nine months of opening the school, she was blindsided by a s.e.x abuse scandal that resulted in a lawsuit against her for libel, a.s.sault, and slander by the former headmistress; several firings; and a trial in South Africa of a dorm matron charged with fourteen counts of s.e.xual a.s.sault and abas.e.m.e.nt of the students. A year later seven students were expelled for lesbian liaisons.

"This has been one of the most devastating, if not the most devastating experience of my life," Oprah said in a press conference with South African reporters. "When I first heard about it I spent about a half hour crying, moving from room to room in my house. I was so stunned, I couldn't even wrap my brain around it."

Some were taken aback by her comments, feeling that she was personalizing a tragedy in terms of how it might affect her image. "It was tasteless of her to talk about this experience as though it was about her," wrote Caille Millner in the San Francisco San Francisco Chronicle. "It made her sound self-absorbed and a little clueless." "It made her sound self-absorbed and a little clueless."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann agreed. After running the video clip of Oprah at her press conference, he said, "Thank goodness, Ms. Winfrey is okay, since, after all, this was about her."

In a column t.i.tled "Oprah the Avenger," Eugene Robinson wrote in The The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, "I did wince yesterday when she called allegations of s.e.xual and "I did wince yesterday when she called allegations of s.e.xual and physical abuse at the girls' school she founded in South Africa 'one of the most devastating, if not the most devastating experience of my life'--seeming to make it all about her, not the alleged victims. Still, my heart refused to harden."

Oprah said she had spent a month at the school before the scandal was reported, but knew nothing about it because the girls had not told her. They had been instructed to always put on happy faces around "Mum Oprah" and never complain to her about anything. It was not until they read an article in the Sowetan Sowetan [September 27, 2007], a [September 27, 2007], a daily newspaper in South Africa, about one child being taken out of the school by her mother after suffering "emotional abuse," that fifteen students acknowledged the article's accuracy and stepped forward with their own charges of abuse.

Because of the international publicity surrounding her school, Oprah needed to address the scandal, which she did by satellite from her Harpo studios in Chicago. She then released the tape on November 5, 2007, to U.S. news outlets, with unusual usage rules: Please note the following per Harpo Productions for the use of Oprah News Conference footage: Credit: Harpo Productions, Inc.

This footage may be used on our platforms only during the month of November 2007. No further use (including internet archiving) is authorized after November 30, 2007.

"She handled the matter of the s.e.x scandal at her school with seeming transparency," said one network executive, "but she would not allow the footage to be played over and over again. She distributed the tape with instructions that we could only use it for the remainder of the month, and we could not archive it or show it in perpetuity.

That is absolutely unheard-of."

The extreme control Oprah exercised over the press coverage of the s.e.x abuse scandal stands in contrast to the unlimited press coverage she sought when opening her school. She spent months preparing for a ribbon-cutting that would showcase her dream to the world. She had talked about her school many times on her show, most recently before the official opening, when she introduced her audience to Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 n.o.bel Peace Prize. They discussed the evils of moneylenders, and Oprah said she had learned about the practice "when I was in Africa the other day building a school." She wanted to be accepted by the n.o.bel laureate as a peer, perhaps because she herself was being put forward as a n.o.bel candidate.

"I started the n.o.bel movement after Oprah appeared at the Dream Academy Dinner [May 24, 2005] to raise money for at-risk children whose parents are in prison,"

said Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., publicist Rocky Twyman. "When she stood up, praised G.o.d, opened her purse, and gave the Dream Academy a million dollars, I wanted to get her the n.o.bel Peace Prize...but the n.o.bel committee did not want to give it to a celebrity. So I formed a committee, and we talked to Dorothy Height [president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women], who was all for Oprah because Oprah had given Dr. Height two-point-five million in 2002 to pay off the mortgage on the NCNW headquarters....Dr.

Height contacted Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu, and we set out to get publicity to collect a hundred thousand signatures for Oprah's nomination to present to the n.o.bel committee....

"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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d did not want it to happen."

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First Lady Barbara Bush on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, October 23, 1989, 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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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 j.a.pan. Stedman, a confirmed Republican, would not attend, so Oprah invited her good friend.

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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 Leaders.h.i.+p Academy for Girls in South Africa.

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Mich.e.l.le 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, The Secret, returned home and created a vision board (see it, 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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The front page of the conservative New York Post New York Post interprets Oprah's political interprets Oprah's political endors.e.m.e.nt of Barack Obama for president, December 9, 2007.

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The satirical cover of The New Republic The New Republic following Oprah's trip to Auschwitz with following Oprah's trip to Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel announcing his book Night Night as her book club selection for May 24, 2006. She 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. Photo Credit: Drew Friedman. ) ) OPRAH'S FAVORITE CELEBRITIES.

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Tom Cruise ( Photo Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images. Photo Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images. ) ) [image]

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Michael Jackson ( Photo Credit: Sylvia Linares/Getty Images Photo Credit: Sylvia Linares/Getty Images) [image]

Diane Sawyer ( Photo Credit: James Devaney/Getty Images. Photo Credit: James Devaney/Getty Images. ) )

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Julia Roberts ( Photo Credit: Bruce Glikas/Getty Images. Photo Credit: Bruce Glikas/Getty Images. ) ) [image]

John F. Kennedy, Jr.

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Toni Morrison ( Photo Credit: James Keyser/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Photo Credit: James Keyser/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. ) ) [image]

John Travolta ( Photo Credit: Michael Tran/Getty Images Photo Credit: Michael Tran/Getty Images) [image]

Five days after Oprah apologized on her show for defending James Frey's book A A Million Little Pieces and then shredded him and his publisher, Pulitzer Prize winner Mike and then shredded him and his publisher, Pulitzer Prize winner Mike Luckovich drew this cartoon in The Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution, The Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution, January 31, 2006, January 31, 2006, characterizing President George W. Bush's State of the Union address.

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After Oprah called into Larry King Live Larry King Live on January 11, 2006, to defend Frey's on January 11, 2006, to defend Frey's book, saying the factual truth was not important given its emotional truth, she was criticized by The New York Times. The New York Times. Two weeks later she backtracked, apologized to her Two weeks later she backtracked, apologized to her viewers, and called Frey a liar.

( Photo Credit: Scott Wintrow/Getty Images. Photo Credit: Scott Wintrow/Getty Images. ) ) OPRAH THROUGH THE YEARS.

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( Photo Credit: George Napolitano/Getty Images. Photo Credit: George Napolitano/Getty Images. ) ) THE OPRAH SARCOPHAGUS.

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The ultimate icon of popular culture is Daniel Edwards's golden resin image of Oprah. "Of all the celebrity pieces I've done, this was the first time I had considered sending a complimentary cast to the subject," said the sculptor, "[but] many people interpreted [this] sculpture as unflattering [and] I just kind of figured Oprah might not find favor with my depiction."

( Photo Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Edwards. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Edwards. ) )

Nineteen.

FIRST, LAST, and always was The Oprah Winfrey Show. The Oprah Winfrey Show. Even during the years Even during the years when she pursued a film career, she never let go of her television show. "It's the foundation for everything," Oprah said. When she finally stopped chasing her dream of becoming "a great movie star," she reclaimed her standing as America's number one talk show host. To stay on that pedestal, she allotted $50 million a year for her show's production costs and hired the best producers she could get, paying them top dollar to move to Chicago; then she supplemented their salaries with a system of bonuses to make sure they worked hard enough to give her the ratings she needed to stay on top.

A team of creative producers helped launch the new and improved Oprah as a beloved philanthropist. David Boul came up with the "World's Largest Piggy Bank,"

which enabled Oprah to collect coins from her audience to fund college scholars.h.i.+ps for needy students. Kate Murphy Davis proposed Oprah's Angel Network, an ingenious way to raise millions from viewers and direct the monies in Oprah's name to Oprah's favorite charities. Alice McGee left her imprint by creating Oprah's Book Club, and Ellen Rakieten, who Oprah said was one of her best producers, thought up "Acts of Kindness,"

"Oprah's Favorite Things," "Thank You Day," and "The Big Give."