Franklin Graham Slams Oprah Winfrey's 'Belief' TV Series for Claiming There Are 'A Million Paths' to God

Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham has criticized Oprah Winfrey's new documentary series, "Belief," which suggests that one can reach God through a number of paths -- not just through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Graham said in a Facebook message on Monday that the new series, which premiered on Sunday, "looks at a number of religions and might make one think there are many paths to God, as Oprah has said in the past."

"There are not many paths to God or to eternal life with Him. A personal relationship with Almighty God through His Son Jesus Christ is the only thing that can fill the void in the human heart," he emphasized.

Graham charges that this is "not a matter of opinion," and added: "One way, one Savior, no exceptions."

The seven-part series, which airs on OWN for seven consecutive nights, Oct. 18-24, looks at various religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism, and searches for deeper meaning and connection with the world.

"The special will also introduce some of the most compelling stories in 'Belief,' each illustrating the rituals and relationships that bind us all together as human beings," reads a description on the show's website. "These stories and others will all lead us to ask: What do you believe?'"

Graham punctuated his Facebook post with a link leading to an article in The Atlantic, which notes that over the years, Winfrey has promoted an "eclectic spirituality," claiming that there are "millions of ways" to get to God, and has backed some New Age gurus, such as Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle.

"Her difficult-to-nail-down theology led Christianity Today to call her 'a postmodern priestess-an icon of church-free spirituality,'" writes journalist Jonathan Merritt, contending that Winfrey's "millions-of-ways approach to faith comes through more than once" throughout "Belief".

"The debut episode depicts a birth to highlight that 'every single one of us enters through the same universal experience' before asking why we are here and whether 'there is a divine order to the mystery of our lives,'" he continues.

"In the introduction to episode two, Oprah says, 'Our planet is home to countless religions, and nearly every one of those faiths asks us to love-love your God, your family, your neighbor.' It's a muffled but constant drumbeat."

While Winfrey''s beliefs may be difficult to pinpoint, she has in the past revealed the tremendous influence the Bible has had on her life and identified herself as a Christian.

"My favorite Bible verse-because I am Christian-is Acts 17:28. It says, 'In God I live and move and have my being'," Winfrey said back in 2012. "And you want to know why I'm so successful? Because I knew that at 4 years-old ... I wouldn't be who I am today without a spiritual consciousness, without spiritual values and ultimately without spiritual love."

In September, the entertainment mogul revealed that she learned Bible verses before learning nursery rhymes: "I grew up with the stories of Elijah and Elisha and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fire," she said.

"All of these biblical characters and stories were what I learned before I learned nursery rhymes or before I learned fairytales. ... I learned what it means to rely on Jesus, and not to rely on your own power. Because of those stories, I grew up knowing that real fear was trusting in only myself and that being fearless was being able to release my fears to that which is greater than myself and let God handle it."

Oprah Winfrey Closes Iconic Harpo Studios

Twenty-six years ago, Oprah Winfrey opened Harpo Studios in Chicago, Illinois. The company controlled Winfrey’s media and entertainment properties like her iconic "The Oprah Winfrey Show", but in March 2015 Winfrey announced that Harpo Studios would be closing by the end of 2015. Here is a look at the company, and what the future holds for the queen of media's entertainment ventures.

Harpo’s Humble Beginnings

Oprah started out as a rookie Baltimore journalist; however, her career began to take flight when she was recruited by a television station in Chicago to host a morning show. Her career quickly took off, and Winfrey debuted the syndicated "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 1986, to an audience of about 10 million people. By the end of the first year, the show had grossed an estimated $125 million. Winfrey was soon awarded ownership of the show by ABC, at the same time that she launched Harpo Productions.

Fun fact: Harpo was the name of Winfrey’s character’s husband in the film "The Color Purple," and it’s also the name Oprah spelled backward.

In 1988, when Harpo Productions took over ownership and production responsibilities for Winfrey’s daytime talk show. This was a historic move and made Oprah first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show and the third woman in history to own and produce her own show. Harpo also made her the first African-American (man or woman) to own an entertainment production company.

As Winfrey’s fame grew, she ventured into new platforms, including TV movies, miniseries, feature films, books, and publishing. Winfrey served as the chairperson while Jeffrey Jacobs served as the company’s COO. By 1987, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” had become the top syndicated talk show in the country, taking over the top spot from "Donahue," which had led the pack for years.

The success of Winfrey’s show (and of Harpo) continued throughout the decade. It received multiple Emmy awards and stayed in the number one talk show spot for 12 seasons in a row. In total, the show earned 32 Emmy awards. In 1988, Winfrey was honored with the International Radio and Television Society's Broadcaster of the Year Award. She was the youngest person (and the fifth woman) to receive the award.

With Winfrey’s name fast becoming a powerful brand, the company spent $20 million renovating a 100,000-square-foot TV and film production facility in downtown Chicago. That’s where "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and most other Harpo Entertainment productions were produced. The studio transformed the Chicago neighborhood where it was located. As The Huffington Post explained, “Winfrey is often given credit for transforming the once-gritty industrial enclave to a neighborhood filled with families pushing strollers and walking their dogs. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley even named a nearby street for the talk show queen before he retired.”

The company continued to expand, and Winfrey created a new division called Harpo Films. Harpo Films and ABC announced a three-year agreement in the mid-1990s in which Harpo would create six made-for-television movies for ABC under the "Oprah Winfrey Presents" banner. Total revenues in 1997 at Harpo were a reported $150 million, which was a 7.1% increase from the year prior.

A few years later, in April 2000, Harpo teamed up with the Hearst Corporation to publish the very first issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, which is still a successful women’s lifestyle magazine. At the start of 2008, Winfrey made a huge announcement with OWN, her network, and multi-platform media company. Winfrey was to serve as Chairman of The Oprah Winfrey Network, LLC, and the venture would be equally owned by Discovery Communications Inc. (DISCA) and Harpo in a 50/50 split.

OWN had struggled for a few years before the cable channel started to turn real profits. In 2013, Discovery announced that in the second quarter of that year, “OWN was cash-flow positive for the first time.” In 2014, OWN was called, “one of the biggest comeback stories in cable history.”
However, as OWN became more successful, it became time to shutter Harpo. In the spring of 2015, Winfrey announced that all productions would be moving to the OWN headquarters in Los Angeles, and it is estimated that approximately 200 employees at Harpo’s Chicago office will be laid off.
"The time had come to downsize this part of the business and to move forward,” Winfrey told The Hollywood Reporter. “It will be sad to say goodbye, but I look ahead with such a knowing that what the future holds is even more than I can see.”

The Harpo shakeup happened almost a year after real estate developer Sterling Bay Cos. closed a reported $32 million deal for the company's four-building facility.

Changes Ahead

When the decision to close Harpo was announced, company presidents, Sheri Salata, and Erik Logan cited the need to streamline operations and have the whole OWN team in one location.
OWN has posted three consecutive years of growth, and in February of 2015 it was named the number 20 ad-supported cable network among women. The network got off to a rocky start but seems to have found its footing in recent years. They are aiming to produce more scripted shows (as opposed to the “docuseries” like the docuseries “Lindsay,” with Linsay Lohan). OWN also has plans to work with well-regarded filmmakers like "Selma’s" Ava DuVernay, and Harpo still has a development slate of films and shows. As well, Winfrey plans to get back in front of the camera for some OWN projects. She had a role in last year’s “Selma,” and plans to work with DuVernay again.

The Bottom Line

As Winfrey rose to fame and became an international brand, her iconic Harpo Studios was responsible for producing some of the most seminal television of the era. Winfrey announced the closure of Harpo Studios in early 2015, in an effort to move all operations under the OWN banner in Los Angeles. With all efforts focused on OWN, 2016 should be a crucial year for the company.

Weight Watchers International Inc. Soars as Oprah Bets Big

What: Shares of Weight Watchers (NYSE:WTW) soared on Monday following the announcement that Oprah Winfrey had purchased a 10% stake in the company. At 11 noon Monday, the stock was up about 89%.

So what: The deal between Winfrey and Weight Watchers goes beyond a simple equity stake. Winfrey will join the Weight Watchers' board of directors as well as the Weight Watchers program, acting as an advisor to the company. "Winfrey will bring insight and strategy to program development and execution that reflects not only her own experiences as a member, but also her unique ability to inspire and connect people to live their best lives," stated Weight Watchers' press release announcing the deal.

Winfrey will also have the option to purchase an additional 3.5 million shares, or 5% of the company, through an options award. As part of the deal, Winfrey won't be able to sell any of her shares for at least two years, with 15% of the purchased shares able to be sold after three years and an additional 30% available after four years. After five years, Winfrey will be free to exit her position in the company.

Winfrey offered her reasoning for making the deal: "Weight Watchers has given me the tools to begin to make the lasting shift that I and so many of us who are struggling with weight have longed for. I believe in the program so much I decided to invest in the company and partner in its evolution."

Now what: Weight Watchers has been struggling for the past couple of years, with membership to its weight-loss programs in decline. During the second quarter, the company reported that its total subscriber base had fallen by 16.7% year-over-year, with revenue slumping by 22.1% and operating income down 38.4%. The company has faced competition from free mobile apps, and it has struggled to remain relevant.

Tying its brand to that of Winfrey is certainly a game-changing move, and it has the potential to turn around the company's fortunes. During Winfrey's time as host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, her book recommendations often led to millions of copies being sold, an effect that Weight Watchers is certainly hoping carries over to its products and services.

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Oprah Winfrey: one of the world's best neoliberal capitalist thinkers

Oprah is appealing because her stories hide the role of political, economic and social structures in our lives. They make the American dream seem attainable

 

Oprah Winfrey in 2011. Photograph: Todd Williamson/WireImage

In Oprah Winfrey lore, one particular story is repeated over and over. When Oprah was 17, she won the Miss Fire Prevention Contest in Nashville, Tennessee. Until that year every winner had had a mane of red hair, but Oprah would prove to be a game changer.

The contest was the first of many successes for Oprah. She has won numerous Emmys, has been nominated for an Oscar, and appears on lists like Time’s 100 Most Influential People. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded the Oprah Book Club, which is often credited with reviving Americans’ interest in reading. Her generosity and philanthropic spirit are legendary.

Oprah has legions of obsessive, devoted fans who write her letters and follow her into public restrooms. Oprah basks in their love: “I know people really, really, really love me, love me.” And she loves them right back. It’s part of her “higher calling”. She believes that she was put on this earth to lift people up, to help them “live their best life”. She encourages people to love themselves, believe in themselves, and follow their dreams.

Oprah is one of a new group of elite storytellers who present practical solutions to society’s problems that can be found within the logic of existing profit-driven structures of production and consumption. They promote market-based solutions to the problems of corporate power, technology, gender divides, environmental degradation, alienation and inequality.

Oprah’s popularity stems in part from her message of empathy, support, and love in an increasingly stressful, alienating society. Three decades of companies restructuring their operations by eliminating jobs (through attrition, technology, and outsourcing) and dismantling both organized labor and the welfare state have left workers in an extremely precarious situation.

Oprah in the early days of the show. Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex

Today, new working-class jobs are primarily low-wage service jobs, and the perks that once went along with middle-of-the-road white-collar jobs have disappeared. Flexible, project-oriented, contingent work has become the norm, enabling companies to ratchet up their requirements for all workers except those at the very top. Meanwhile, the costs of education, housing, childcare, and health care have skyrocketed, making it yet more difficult for individuals and households to get by, never mind prosper.

In this climate of stress and uncertainty, Oprah tells us the stories of her life to help us understand our feelings, cope with difficulty and improve our lives. She presents her personal journey and metamorphosis from poor little girl in rural Mississippi to billionaire prophet as a model for overcoming adversity and finding “a sweet life”.

Oprah’s biographical tale has been managed, mulled over, and mauled in the public gaze for 30 years. She used her precocious intelligence and wit to channel the pain of abuse and poverty into building an empire. She was on television by the age of 19 and had her own show within a decade.

The 1970s feminist movement opened the door to the domestic, private sphere, and the show walked in a decade later, breaking new ground as a public space to discuss personal troubles affecting Americans, particularly women. Oprah broached topics (divorce, depression, alcoholism, child abuse, adultery, incest) that had never before been discussed with such candor and empathy on television.

The show’s evolution over the decades mirrored the evolution of Oprah’s own life. In its early years the show followed a “recovery model” in which guests and viewers were encouraged to overcome their problems through self-esteem building and learning to love themselves.

US President Barack Obama presents broadcast journalist Oprah Winfrey with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

But as copycat shows and criticisms of “trash talk” increased in the early 1990s, Oprah changed the show’s format. In 1994, Oprah declared that she was done with “victimization” and negativity: “It ’s time to move on from ‘We are dysfunctional’ to ‘What are we going to do about it?’” Oprah credited her decision to her own personal evolution: “People must grow and change” or “they will shrivel up” and “their souls will shrink”.

In an appearance on Larry King Live, Oprah acknowledged that she had become concerned about the message of her show and so had decided to embark on a new mission “to lift people up”. Themes of spirituality and empowerment displaced themes of personal pathology. For Oprah, the transformation was total: “Today I try to do well and be well with everyone I reach or encounter. I make sure to use my life for that which can be of goodwill. Yes, this has brought me great wealth. More important, it has fortified me spiritually and emotionally.”

A stream of self-help gurus have spent time on Oprah’s stage over the past decade and a half, all with the same message. You have choices in life. External conditions don’t determine your life. You do. It ’s all inside you, in your head, in your wishes and desires. Thoughts are destiny, so thinking positive thoughts will enable positive things to happen.

When bad things happen to us, it’s because we’re drawing them toward us with unhealthy thinking and behaviors. “Don’t complain about what you don’t have. Use what you’ve got. To do less than your best is a sin. Every single one of us has the power for greatness because greatness is determined by service—to yourself and others.” If we listen to that quiet “whisper” and fine-tune our “internal, moral, emotional GPS”, we too can learn the secret of success.

Janice Peck, in her work as professor of journalism and communication studies, has studied Oprah for years. She argues that to understand the Oprah phenomenon we must return to the ideas swirling around in the Gilded Age. Peck sees strong parallels in the mind-cure movement of the Gilded Age and Oprah’s evolving enterprise in the New Gilded Age, the era of neoliberalism. She argues that Oprah’s enterprise reinforces the neoliberal focus on the self: Oprah’s “enterprise [is] an ensemble of ideological practices that help legitimize a world of growing inequality and shrinking possibilities by promoting and embodying a configuration of self compatible with that world.”

Nothing captures this ensemble of ideological practices better than O Magazine, whose aim is to “help women see every experience and challenge as an opportunity to grow and discover their best self. To convince women that the real goal is becoming more of who they really are. To embrace their life.” O Magazine implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, identifies a range of problems in neoliberal capitalism and suggests ways for readers to adapt themselves to mitigate or overcome these problems.

Does your 60 hour-a-week desk job make your back hurt and leave you emotionally exhausted and stressed? Of course it does. Studies show that “death by office job” is real: people who sit at a desk all day are more likely to be obese, depressed, or just dead for no discernible reason. But you can dull these effects and improve your wellness with these O-approved strategies: Become more of an “out-of-the-box thinker” because creative people are healthier. Bring photos, posters, and “kitschy figurines” to decorate your workspace: “You’ll feel less emotionally exhausted and reduce burnout.” Write down three positive things that happened during your workday every night before leaving the office to “reduce stress and physical pain from work”.

Oprah is appealing precisely because her stories hide the role of political, economic, and social structures

In December 2013, O devoted a whole issue to anxiety and worry. The issue “conquers a lifetime ’s worth of anxieties and apprehensions”, an apt subject given rising levels of anxiety across the age spectrum.

In the issue, bibliotherapists Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin present a list of books for the anxious, prescribing them instead of a “trip to the pharmacy”. Feeling claustrophobic because you’re too poor to move out of your parents’ house? Read Little House on the Prairie. Feeling stressed because your current project at work is ending and you don’t have another lined up? Read The Man Who Planted Trees. Worried that you won’t be able to pay the rent because you just lost your job? Read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. “Instead of feeling depressed, follow the lead hero Toru Okada, who, while jobless, embarks on a fantastic liberating journey that changes the way he thinks.”

Oprah recognizes the pervasiveness of anxiety and alienation in our society. But instead of examining the economic or political basis of these feelings, she advises us to turn our gaze inward and reconfigure ourselves to become more adaptable to the vagaries and stresses of the neoliberal moment.

Oprah is appealing precisely because her stories hide the role of political, economic, and social structures. In doing so, they make the American Dream seem attainable. If we just fix ourselves, we can achieve our goals. For some people, the American dream is attainable, but to understand the chances for everyone, we need to look dispassionately at the factors that shape success.

 Oprah Winfrey gestures during the taping of “Oprah’s Surprise Spectacular” in Chicago May 17, 2011. Photograph: John Gress/Reuters

The current incarnation of the American Dream narrative holds that if you acquire enough cultural capital (skills and education) and social capital (connections, access to networks), you will be able to translate that capital into both economic capital (cash) and happiness. Cultural capital and social capital are seen as there for the taking (particularly with advances in internet technology), so the only additional necessary ingredients are pluck, passion, and persistence— all attributes that allegedly come from inside us.

The American dream is premised on the assumption that if you work hard, economic opportunity will present itself, and financial stability will follow, but the role of cultural and social capital in paving the road to wealth and fulfilment, or blocking it, may be just as important as economic capital. Some people are able to translate their skills, knowledge, and connections into economic opportunity and financial stability, and some are not—either because their skills, knowledge, and connections don’t seem to work as well, or they can’t acquire them in the first place because they’re too poor.

Today, the centrality of social and cultural capital is obscured (sometimes deliberately), as demonstrated in the implicit and explicit message of Oprah and her ideological colleagues. In their stories, and many others like them, cultural and social capital are easy to acquire. They tell us to get an education. Too poor? Take an online course. Go to Khan Academy. They tell us to meet people, build up our network. Don’t have any connected family members? Join LinkedIn.

It’s simple. Anyone can become anything. There’s no distinction between the quality and productivity of different people’s social and cultural capital. We’re all building our skills. We’re all networking.

This is a fiction. If all or most forms of social and cultural capital were equally valuable and accessible, we should see the effects of this in increased upward mobility and wealth created anew by new people in each generation rather than passed down and expanded from one generation to the next. The data do not demonstrate this upward mobility.

The US, in a sample of 13 wealthy countries, ranks highest in inequality and lowest in intergenerational earnings mobility. Wealth isn’t earned fresh in each new generation by plucky go-getters. It is passed down, preserved, and expanded through generous tax laws and the assiduous transmission of social and cultural capital.

The way Oprah tells us to get through it all and realize our dreams is always to adapt ourselves to the changing world, not to change the world we live in. We demand little or nothing from the system, from the collective apparatus of powerful people and institutions. We only make demands of ourselves.

We are the perfect, depoliticized, complacent neoliberal subjects.

And yet we’re not. The popularity of strategies for alleviating alienation rests on our deep, collective desire for meaning and creativity. Literary critic and political theorist Fredric Jameson would say that the Oprah stories, and others like them, are able to “manage our desires” only because they appeal to deep fantasies about how we want to live our lives. This, after all, is what the American dream narrative is about – not necessarily a description of life lived, but a vision of how life should be lived.

When the stories that manage our desires break their promises over and over, the stories themselves become fuel for change and open a space for new, radical stories. These new stories must feature collective demands that provide a critical perspective on the real limits to success in our society and foster a vision of life that does fulfill the desire for self-actualization.

The Oprah Winfrey guide to politely avoiding your long lost ‘son’

Calvin Mitchell claims the star almost adopted him as a child. Unfortunately for him, Oprah has got a planet to save

 

High five? Oprah Winfrey outside the TV studio where she was accosted by Calvin Mitchell. Photograph: BEImage/Rex Shutterstock

Arousing salute to Oprah Winfrey, whose calm in the face of the madder extremes of her fandom is something to behold.

Leaving the studio after a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Oprah was greeted at the stage door by the usual clutch of fans and paparazzi, as well as a gentleman who claims to be the “secret son” she almost adopted when he was 11 years old. Calvin Mitchell reckons they met on the set of the 1993 TV movie There Are No Children Here, and that Oprah opened negotiations to take him off his mother’s hands, but that the deal eventually fell apart.

Mmmm. Calvin is Not Happy about this, by the way, and he recently related his yarn to the National Enquirer. Thereafter, he took the opportunity of his terrifying proximity to Oprah outside the Colbert show to apologise for any distress this choice of outlet might have caused.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he is said to have informed her across the security cordon. “It was the only way to get in touch with you.” As Oprah must harbour fears that Calvin’s face will be the last thing she sees before she dies, her response is a masterclass in keeping it light. “Honey,” she smiled. “I’m on my way to the United Nations right now, so I can’t talk to you.”

Majestic. We wish Oprah every success in managing the decline of the relationship, which I imagine has now been commuted to an annual exchange of restraining orders.

I hate these sorts of shows but big-hearted Oprah Winfrey won me over

Steve Hansen and partner Tash Marshall with Oprah Winfrey and at a Swisse Cocktail event in Auckland. Photo / Supplied

The instructions were clear. No one was to be on their phone or working while Oprah was in the room. We were to be "in the moment".

Oprah is big on living in the moment. On seizing the day. She wants everyone to be their best self.

Normally, this would make me roll my eyes and tune out. I am the type of person who defriends people on Facebook that share inspirational quotes.

But there's something about Oprah that washes away my cynicism. She has an ability to genuinely inspire, without being a bore. There's something very real about her.

The chance to meet her - or even be in the same room - was too much to resist. What words of wisdom would she impart? Would she jog around the room and high-five all of us, a la the live audience at an Oprah show filming?

As we gathered on the mezzanine of Vector Arena, courtesy of her show's sponsor Swisse, around 100 guests made polite small talk and tried to play it cool, while all secretly harbouring the same dream - that she would hug us to her bosom for our new Facebook profile shot.

Anyone expecting a grand entrance was mistaken. Instead, somewhere between Sol3 Mio singing My Way and O Sole Mio, she slipped quietly into the room, standing back to admire the show.

As the room applauded, she shouted "bravo, bravo", before making her way past the likes of Karen Walker, Antonia Prebble and Bronagh Key.

Prime Minister John Key's wife Bronagh and Oprah Winfrey. Photo / Supplied

It's a terrible cliche but she really was smaller in person than I'd imagined. Stately yet comfortable in flat sandals and a beaded green kaftan.

As she took her place on stage for a Q&A, the room's gaze fell on her. Still, silent, ready and waiting to absorb any wisdom she had to impart. That is the Oprah effect.

She shared stories and advice. She made jokes. She stayed 15 minutes longer than was scheduled.

She was real.

There was no time for selfies - only a photo with the Prime Minister's wife and All Blacks' coach Steve Hansen (who gave her the obligatory jersey).

Our host ended the session by saying "people never remember what you say, only the way you make them feel".

I can honestly say that being around Oprah and hearing her stories, made me feel calm. And special. Even, a little bit wise.

I was in the moment. And that will stay with me longer than any selfie.

'It's not because I never had time': Oprah Winfrey reveals why she never married

Oprah Winfrey has explained why she has never married — and never will — during an interview on ITV's Lorraine.

The iconic talk show host has been dating businessman Stedman Graham since 1986, but the pair has chosen not to go down the traditional path of marriage.

"It's not because I never had time — if I wanted to get married, I could've made the time," she told host Lorraine Kelly. "I'm not a traditional woman and I haven't had a traditional life, and I think that had Stedman and I gotten married, we certainly wouldn't have stayed married.

"If you were to ask him, he would say the same thing… He's a pretty traditional man. I've taught him to be non-traditional. But the very idea of what it means to be a wife and the responsibility and sacrifice that carries — I wouldn't have held that very well."

The 59-year-old is appearing on Lorraine as part of a two-part special this Friday and Monday. She also revealed what she considers to be her biggest achievement.

"The show was the true love of my life — it took up all of my energy," the self-made billionaire said of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ended in 2011 after 25 years on air.

"For so many years I had that day job that occupied my whole life, so at the end of the Oprah show one of my final comments was “this show has been the love of my life”. That is absolutely the truth."

18 Cool Facts About Oprah Winfrey

IMAGE: Getty Images

Today I'm sharing some surprising facts about the "Queen of Media." From her dirt poor upbringing to her celebrity stardom, we all know Oprah Winfrey has had an exceptional career, but wait until you here these unexpected Oprah facts!
1. Winfrey was named "Orpah" after the biblical character in the Book of Ruth on her birth certificate, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck
2. As a child, Oprah Winfrey was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses as her grandmother often took her to church
3. Winfrey was born the daughter of an unwed teen.
4 .At age 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
5. Oprah Winfrey's family was so poor growing up that, as a child, Winfrey was teased at school for wearing dresses made of potato sacks.
6. Oprah Winfrey is at least 8% Native American--something she discovered when undergoing a DNA test for the PBS show African American Lives.
7. Winfrey had a son when she was 14 years old who died as an infant.
8. Oprah Winfrey openly discussed her childhood sexual abuse suffered at the hands of male relatives and her mother's friends on a special episode of her show focusing on sexual abuse in 1986.
9. Oprah was anchoring the news at Nashville's WTVF-TV when she was just 19, making her the youngest person and the first African-American woman to hold the position.
10. Winfrey has donated her voice for an array cartoon characters, voicing Gussie the goose for Charlotte's Web, and Eudora, the mother of Princess Tiana in Disney'sThe Princess and the Frog, among others.
11. Oprah Winfrey has interviewed countless celebrities, including Michael Jackson, whose interview became the 4th most watched event in American television history, as well as the most watched interview of all-time, with 36 million viewers.
12. Winfrey credits her grandmother for guiding her towards success, saying that it was Hattie Mae who encouraged her to speak up in public, giving Winfrey confidence at an early age and a positive sense of self.
13. Winfrey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple.
14. Winfrey is credited for popularizing the intimate, confessional form of talk show, which has since become common across cable networks.
15.She was instrumental in launching Oxygen Media, dedicated to producing cable programming specifically for women.
16. Oprah Winfrey is the first black woman billionaire and the richest African-American woman.
17.She is also referred to by many as the most influential woman in the world.
18. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation's highest civilian honor) by President Barack Obama.

Oprah Winfrey Biography

Born to an unwed teenage mother, Oprah Winfrey spent her first years on her grandmother's farm in Kosciusko, Mississippi, while her mother looked for work in the North. Life on the farm was primitive, but her grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and at age three Oprah was reciting poems and Bible verses in local churches. Despite the hardships of her physical environment, she enjoyed the loving support of her grandmother and the church community, who cherished her as a gifted child.

Her world changed for the worse at age six, when she was sent to Milwaukee to live with her mother, who had found work as a housemaid. In the long days when her mother was absent from their inner city apartment, young Oprah was repeatedly molested by male relatives and another visitor. The abuse, which lasted from the ages of nine to 13, was emotionally devastating. When she tried to run away, she was sent to a juvenile detention home, only to be denied admission because all the beds were filled. At 14, she was out of the house and on her own. By her own account, she was sexually promiscuous as a teenager. After giving birth to a baby boy who died in infancy, she went to Nashville, Tennessee to live with her father.

Vernon Winfrey was a strict disciplinarian, but he gave his daughter the secure home life she needed. He saw to it that she met a curfew, and he required her to read a book and write a book report each week. "As strict as he was," says Oprah, "he had some concerns about me making the best of my life, and would not accept anything less than what he thought was my best." In this structured environment, Oprah flourished, and became an honor student, winning prizes for oratory and dramatic recitation.

At age 17, Oprah Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and was offered an on-air job at WVOL, a radio station serving the African American community in Nashville. She also won a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she majored in Speech Communications and Performing Arts. Oprah continued to work at WVOL in her first years of college, but her broadcasting career was already taking off. She left school and signed on with a local television station as a reporter and anchor.

In 1976, she moved to Baltimore to join WJZ-TV News as a co-anchor. There, she co-hosted her first talk show, People Are Talking, while continuing to serve as anchor and news reporter. She had found a niche that perfectly suited her outgoing, empathetic personality, and word soon spread to other cities. In January 1984, she was invited to Chicago to host a faltering half-hour morning program on WLS-TV. In less than a year, she turned AM Chicago into the hottest show in town. The format was soon expanded to an hour, and in September 1985 it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.

A year later, The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast nationally, and quickly became the number one talk show in national syndication. In 1987, its first year of eligibility, the show received three Daytime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Host, Outstanding Talk/Service Program and Outstanding Direction. The following year, the show received its second consecutive Emmy as Outstanding Talk/Service Program, and Oprah herself received the International Radio and Television Society's "Broadcaster of the Year" Award. She was the youngest person ever to receive the honor.

By the time America fell in love with Oprah Winfrey the talk show host, she had already captured the nation's attention with her poignant portrayal of Sofia in Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple. Winfrey's performance earned her nominations for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actress. Critics again lauded her performance in Native Son, a movie adaptation of Richard Wright's classic 1940 novel.

Her love of acting and her desire to bring quality entertainment projects into production prompted her to form her own production company, Harpo Productions, Inc., in 1986. Today, Harpo is a formidable force in film and television production, as well as magazine publishing and the Internet. In 1988, Harpo Productions, Inc. acquired ownership and all production responsibilities forThe Oprah Winfrey Show from Capitol Cities/ABC, making Oprah Winfrey the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show. The following year, Harpo produced its first television miniseries, The Women of Brewster Place, with Oprah Winfrey as star and Executive Producer. It was quickly followed by the TV movies There Are No Children Here (1993), and Before Women Had Wings(1997), which she both produced and appeared in.

Initially, The Oprah Winfrey Show followed a model established by other daytime talk shows, employing sensational stories and outrageous guests to attract viewers, but since the 1990s, Oprah began to emphasize spiritual values, healthy living and self-help, and her program became more popular than ever. Motivated in part by her own memories of childhood abuse, she initiated a campaign to establish a national database of convicted child abusers, and testified before a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of a National Child Protection Act. President Clinton signed the "Oprah Bill" into law in 1993, establishing the national database she had sought, which is now available to law enforcement agencies and concerned parties across the country.

Oprah's show also continued to attract the top names in the entertainment industry; a 1993 interview with the reclusive entertainer Michael Jackson drew a hundred million viewers, making it the most watched interview in television history. Oprah Winfrey was named one of the "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century" by Time magazine, and in 1998 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Despite her complete dominance of the daytime talk show field, Oprah Winfrey had not given up her acting ambitions. In 1998, she produced and starred in the feature filmBeloved, adapted from the book by the Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. Winfrey has long used her television program to champion the works of authors she admires, including Morrison, and her longtime friend Maya Angelou. Her influence over the publishing industry exploded when she began her on-air book club in 1996. "Oprah Book Club" selections became instant bestsellers, and in 1999 Winfrey received the National Book Foundation's 50th anniversary gold medal for her service to books and authors. She herself has authored five books. A proposed book on weight loss, to be co-written with her personal trainer, has received a publisher's advance fee reported to be the highest in history.

Oprah Winfrey's business interests have extended well beyond her own production company. She is one of the partners in Oxygen Media, Inc., a cable channel and interactive network presenting programming designed primarily for women. With her success, she has also become one of the world's most generous philanthropists. In 2000, Oprah's Angel Network began presenting a $100,000 "Use Your Life Award" to people who are using their own lives to improve the lives of others. She now publishes two magazines, O, The Oprah Magazine, and O at Home. The launch of her first magazine was the most successful start-up in the history of the industry. When Forbespublished its list of America's billionaires for the year 2003, it disclosed that Oprah Winfrey was the first African-American woman to become a billionaire.

The Oprah Winfrey Show remained as popular as ever, airing in 140 countries around the world. Many of her regular guests, including Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz, have gone on to shows of their own, produced by Oprah's Harpo Productions. Over the years, she has also used her program to promote the many philanthropic ventures she supports. After filming a Christmas program in South Africa, she established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, near Johannesburg. Her legendary generosity has extended not only to her favorite charities, but to her loyal viewers. She celebrated the beginning of her 20th season on national television by giving every member of the studio audience a brand new Pontiac automobile.

Two decades after she first established herself as a national presence, Oprah Winfrey was still devoting much of her prodigious energy to film and television production. In 2005, she produced a film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a screenplay by Suzan-Lori Parks. The same year, she produced a successful Broadway musical version ofThe Color Purple. As an actress, she has been heard in a number of successful animated films, including Charlotte's Web, Bee Movie and The Princess and the Frog.

In the 2008 presidential election, Winfrey publicly endorsed a political candidate for the first time, hosting a fundraiser for SenatorBarack Obama and appearing with him at campaign events. It is widely believed that her support was crucial to his winning the Democratic nomination -- and the Presidency itself. In that election year, she also announced plans for a new broadcasting venture with the Discovery Health Channel, to be renamed Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In a 2010 interview on the Larry Kingprogram at the end of that year, she announced her decision to end her run on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The final broadcast took place on May 25, 2011, after 24 seasons and over 5,000 broadcasts. The end of the syndicated program was not the end of Oprah Winfrey's broadcasting career. She now hosts a nightly program, Oprah's Lifeclass, on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Oprah Winfrey makes her principal home on a 42-acre ocean-view estate in Montecito, California, just south of Santa Barbara, but also owns homes in another six states and the island of Antigua. The business press measures her wealth in numerous superlatives: the highest-paid performer on television, the richest self-made woman in America, and the richest African-American of the 20th century. More difficult to calculate is her profound influence over the way people around the world read, eat, exercise, feel and think about themselves and the world around them. She appears on every list of the world's leading opinion-makers, and has been rightly called "the most powerful woman in the world." Her wide-ranging philanthropic efforts were recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2011 with a special Oscar statuette, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Oprah Winfrey the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Weight Watchers: How to Book Oprah Winfrey as an Intangible Asset

No matter how charming the gecko, nobody is as capable of lifting a stock's price with a single commercial as Oprah Winfrey.

After all, when it comes to Weight Watchers International (WTW), investors have been throwing the traditional value investing rule book out the window. (At what value is an accountant supposed to book Winfrey as an intangible asset?)

To start with, the stock's performance has been all over the place. Investors tend to gobble up more shares every time Winfrey reveals renewed enthusiasm, before quitting the New York-based weight-loss company altogether over fears its recent stock gains merely indicate a dead cat bounce. Not quite the recipe for a healthy diet.

Between December and Winfrey's October announcement that she had taken a 10% equity stake, as well as a seat on the board, shares surged nearly fourfold. Since then the company'smarket cap has been roughly cut in half, as shares tumbled 47%.

In December, the company rolled out its "Beyond the Scale" program, including a "SmartPoints" and new means to personalize goals; in the midst of which Winfrey released an emotional video advertisement extoling the diet program.

"Many times you look in the mirror you don't even recognize your own self because you've got lost, buried, in the weight that you carry," she said. "If not now, when? I feel that way and I know millions of other people feel that way. Are you ready? Let's do this together. "

Shares jumped roughly 19% off the late-December commercial, before tanking 39% so far in 2016. And it appears we won't get a look inside the company's actually performance until its February earnings call.

So what's Wall Street's take? The majority are saying this is a wait-and-see stock.

"Most of Weight Watchers's third quarter occurred before it announced its partnership with Oprah Winfrey and before she appeared on the company's website," Barclays analyst Meredith Adler wrote in an investment note.

"Consequently, all the key measures of the business' health, including revenues, paid weeks, and active subscribers, continued to decline," she said. "Consumers have responded with enthusiasm to the involvement of Ms. Winfrey, which we do not find surprising, and management now believes Weight Watchers will see positive recruitment in the fourth quarter, earlier than previously expected."

While Barclays maintains a $17 price target, the average among its seven listed analysts is $20.75, with 71% reporting Hold positions, according to consensus data compiled byBloomberg.
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