- 4 hours ago
Oprah Winfrey revisits some of the most unforgettable moments of her career. From the legendary car giveaway and her landmark interview with Barack Obama to The Color Purple, her conversation with Prince Harry and Meghan and more, Oprah reflects on the stories, decisions, and moments that helped define her extraordinary career.
The Oprah Podcast is now available on Amazon.
The Oprah Podcast is now available on Amazon.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Were you silent or were you silenced?
00:04Okay, okay, very nice. I don't think I've done it since.
00:08I don't know where the hell that came from.
00:11Hi, I'm Oprah Winfrey, and today we're going to be taking a look at some of the iconic moments of
00:19my career.
00:20So excited to see these.
00:23Here we go.
00:38Listen carefully.
00:40Inside one of these boxes is a key. Do not open it yet.
00:45Okay, everybody, listen up. Here is the deal.
00:48If your box has a key, you will be the last person today to get one of those cute little
00:53G6s.
00:55Okay?
00:56Oh my gosh, this is a Celine suit.
00:59I'd gotten this suit to wear for this occasion.
01:02And then Gail, whose idea it was to give away the cars, by the way, was at this show.
01:07And she comes into my dressing room and she goes, you're not wearing that, are you?
01:11And I go, yeah.
01:12She goes, oh, I just think it's too suity.
01:14I think you should wear something more fun.
01:15It looks too much like...
01:17And I go, I am wearing this red suit because it matches the bows on the cars, Gail.
01:23All right, open your boxes.
01:25Open your boxes.
01:26One, two, three.
01:33I love this, love this, love this.
01:36I remembered, like, in the middle of the night that we hadn't taped the keys down in the boxes.
01:43And it occurred to me, and I said to the producers who were up all night long, actually, for this
01:47show, you've got to tape the keys in the boxes because the first thing you're going to do is shake
01:52the box.
01:52So I don't know if most people know this.
01:54We'd already given out 11 cars.
01:57We had given out 11 cars on this particular day.
02:00And there was the 12th car.
02:02There was supposedly one car left.
02:05And everybody was thinking they were going to be that one person.
02:08You see them all like, I hope it's me.
02:10You get a car!
02:11You get a car!
02:12You get a car!
02:14You get a car!
02:16Everybody gets a car!
02:18The reason I ended up saying, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car, because that
02:22first woman, that first black woman who goes, I got it!
02:25It's me!
02:26And then someone next to her said, no, I got it.
02:28I got it.
02:29So I thought, oh, we're going to have pandemonium with everybody thinking, no, I'm the one that got it.
02:34And I was screaming it because they were screaming so loud.
02:37Nobody could hear what I was saying.
02:39Oh, my gosh.
02:42I know!
02:43You can believe it!
02:44Oh, my gosh, that was so fun.
02:50So many, so many things.
02:52Do you know what?
02:53Also, the day before, when the bows first came, the bows were too small.
02:58So, I mean, that's why everybody was up all night long, is because the bows were too small for the
03:03car.
03:03You needed the bow to cover the whole car.
03:06And when I went through and I saw them, I went, all these bows have to go because they're too
03:10small.
03:10We need larger bows because what you want to be able to do is to drive the car home and
03:15have the big bow when you get there.
03:17You know those little Christmas bows that are like the little pointy things?
03:20You know, you don't want that.
03:22You want a big bow.
03:24And my gosh, there's a shot of me somewhere with the red suit on and the red bows.
03:30And it worked, Gail.
03:38Please welcome Senator Barack Obama.
03:44Look at how sweetie pie young he is.
03:47Thank you, guys.
03:49Okay.
03:50You got all my cousins in here, huh?
03:52All your family members.
03:53A couple.
03:54Anyway, we're, obviously, you all know we taped this show in Chicago.
03:58People who are watching around the world, Chicago's in Illinois.
04:01This is my senator, my favorite senator.
04:05I knew then he was going to be president of the United States.
04:08Not only did I know it, I was saying it out loud.
04:12I remember having at my house a great dinner party for a group of women that I call legends.
04:21So I had this legends ball and I did a whole weekend and I had him to come and speak.
04:26This was in 2005.
04:28And I remember standing in the room of all of these legendary women and men, including
04:35Coretta Scott King and her children and Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson and Sidney Poitier
04:40and Quincy Jones.
04:42All of them were there.
04:43There were 400 people at this event.
04:45And I introduced him as the U.S. senator who would one day be president of the United States.
04:52And I remember Ruby Dee coming up to me afterwards and say, baby, we can't even pronounce his name.
04:59How are you going to be president?
05:01And so years later, in 2008, after he won, they were all, all the elders were stunned.
05:10I just got back from vacation and recently and I was sitting at the spa and everybody were all talking
05:16about you.
05:17And out of six women at the table, everybody was slaying your name.
05:23They were slaying.
05:24You got called everything.
05:26Yo mama.
05:26Yo mama.
05:28No, and they transposed the B's and the O's and the B's and the Barama.
05:33God, no.
05:34Yeah.
05:34It's tough.
05:35And I was told in the beginning, I don't know if you know this, I was told when I first
05:39started out to change my name to Susie because they said nobody would ever.
05:43Do I look like a Susie to you?
05:45But that nobody would ever remember it.
05:46There is a line in a Maya Angelou poem.
05:49Actually, I think it's in the poem she wrote to me called Continue where she says, if there should ever
05:54come a time, be willing to risk everything for the good thing.
05:59And I will tell you, I was willing to risk my popularity.
06:03I was willing to risk, you know, losing audience.
06:06I was willing to risk because I believed that this was supposed to happen.
06:11I believed so strongly.
06:14It wasn't even like, oh, rah, rah thing.
06:18It was like a spiritual thing.
06:19I think that both of us, you know, represent what's possible in this nation.
06:26And that's, you know, part of the magic of this country is that, you know, we can make ourselves and
06:32despite the cards that are dealt to us.
06:36I believe that so.
06:39That, you know, for me and all that I've been able to accomplish, it says that this is what is
06:44possible.
06:45This is what is possible.
06:46One of the reasons I hold on to my own sense of hope and optimism is because of that conversation
06:52and many conversations that I've had with Barack Obama, who reminded me and continues to remind me and all of
07:00us that we have been through some really darker times.
07:05We've been in some really tough times, and if you look at history, even prior to the Civil War, we've
07:13been in some really tough times.
07:14And so that gives me hope that we can get through any time.
07:19But let me just tell you, you don't even have to play it.
07:20I was like, that's how I was then.
07:27You can tell because my voice is like four octaves higher than it normally is.
07:31I was nervous and I wanted this to be a good platform for him.
07:36I wanted people to see what I had seen, but I was nervous.
07:40I was nervous.
07:41I'm not nervous anymore.
07:43That's how my relationship has changed.
07:44It's like, hey, how you doing?
07:54You told Hoppo to beat me.
07:58It was that mule, Pa.
08:00Old Joy.
08:01Old Joy the mule, I tell you, I was out to try to ply that Northfield.
08:04And the mule just went crazy.
08:06He started kicking and bucking.
08:07Hit me right there.
08:08Bust my eye, bust my lip.
08:10All my life I had to fight.
08:13I had to fight my daddy.
08:15I had to fight my uncles.
08:17I had to fight my brothers.
08:19My girl child ain't safe in the family men's.
08:23But I never thought I had to fight in my own house.
08:26I love, I love, I love this clip.
08:28First of all, I see this clip and I think about how hot it was.
08:32I remember this whole time.
08:34It was like 104 degrees.
08:37This was early in the morning.
08:38You see the sunlight coming through.
08:40This is the first shot of the day.
08:41And I remember Whoopi was late to set.
08:44So when I did the very first take, we were standing around, we were waiting on Whoopi,
08:47waiting on Whoopi.
08:48And then I said to Steven, I can do it.
08:52She doesn't have to be here.
08:53I can do it.
08:53So I did that first take with the clipboard.
08:59And I just said, tell me where to look.
09:01And I look right there.
09:02And I walk through the corn.
09:04And I remember the corn was hitting me in the face.
09:06It really was a release for me because I had been so scared.
09:12I was terrified.
09:14I was so terrified.
09:16I never wanted anything in my life more than I wanted to be in this movie.
09:20So I was so nervous that I was going to get thrown off the movie because I didn't know how
09:28to act.
09:28It was my first time ever acting.
09:31And I'd go back to the hotel room at night.
09:33I was reading all these books and Stanislavski and the method.
09:36And what does that mean, the method?
09:38And I know you got to figure out a way to tell the truth.
09:40But you got to be yourself.
09:40But you got to tell the truth.
09:41But you also got to be the character.
09:42How do you do that?
09:44And I just thought any minute, Steven Spielberg is going to throw me off of this movie.
09:48And at the end of the film, he did say to me, I knew you were scared.
09:52Makes me want to cry.
09:53He goes, I knew you were really afraid.
09:56But I could see that the fear was working for you.
09:59I love Hoppo.
10:02God knows I do.
10:05But I kill him dead before I let him beat me.
10:08And that's a hood print.
10:09Did you remember the hood print there, Paul?
10:11No, that looked like a fist print.
10:12No, no, sir.
10:13No, sir.
10:13Ain't no fist touch my face.
10:14No, sir.
10:15Years before, I'd heard that Steven Spielberg is going to do this movie called The Color
10:22Purple.
10:22I had gotten the book the day the book was released.
10:26I was in the bookstore standing in line for that book.
10:29I had given the book to every human being I could possibly give it to.
10:33I had told every human being, you know, they're going to be doing a movie.
10:37They're going to be doing a movie.
10:39And I thought, I'm going to find a way to be in that movie.
10:42But I thought I would be best girl.
10:45Because when you go to the credits, it has best boy.
10:47And that's the last thing on the credits.
10:49So I thought, whatever the best boy is, I'm going to convince them that I can be the
10:53girl for that.
10:54But so to then get a call out of nowhere that you're going to be in this movie, this movie
11:00changed my life.
11:01Now, you want a dead son-in-law, Miss Seeley?
11:04You keep on advising him like you do it.
11:09This life be over soon.
11:11Heaven lasts always.
11:13Girl, you ought to bash Mr.'s head open and think about heaven later.
11:27I only had two weeks vacation, and I needed two months to film this movie.
11:32And so I gave up all of my vacation for the next five years in order to do this movie.
11:39And then when it came time to renegotiate, I thought, I never want to be in that position
11:44again.
11:45And so that decision caused me to take the risk of owning myself and owning the show.
11:52All of that happened because of Color Purple.
12:03Today, all new, a landmark Oprah show event.
12:07Your husbands, sons, brothers.
12:11How many of you were abused by more than one?
12:13200 men courageously stand together to say they were all molested.
12:20When you see the vulnerability and the innocence of the little boys, I mean, as I've looked at
12:27the pictures that all of you are holding right now, I think that is who you really are.
12:33Give it to the Oprah show, will you?
12:35That is who you really are.
12:37My favorite moment in any interview is when either a person says it out loud, I never thought
12:42of it that way before, or you can see in their eyes something just happened and they never
12:49thought of it this way before.
12:50And the reason why this show is so moving to me with these men is because those men sitting
12:59in that audience with Tyler Perry and Dr. Fratkin had never thought of it that way before.
13:09They had carried the shame, they had blamed themselves, they had never known that there
13:15were, there was anybody else who felt the way they did, not to mention 200 men sitting
13:21in a room holding pictures of themselves at the age that they were abused.
13:26So, I mean, I just thought that was phenomenal.
13:30These courageous men are standing together to lift the veil of shame today because what
13:37happened to them as young boys has profoundly affected who they have become as men.
13:44I think being a victim of abuse myself, I know that I was defined by shame for most of
13:52my life.
13:53Vandy Farron, go get me crying in here, I can tell you that right now, just stop it right
13:58now, but I was defined by that shame for so many years and it's actually the Oprah show
14:05that freed me.
14:07On my own show, I was interviewing a young girl who was 12 or 13 years old and she thought
14:15that her teacher loved her who was 42 and we later ended up talking to him about how he
14:24groomed her, how every single movie made.
14:27And so it is my conversations with people who've actually had these heinous acts against
14:33children that helped me to understand it wasn't my fault.
14:36So understanding, for example, that the man who was molesting his 13-year-old daughter had
14:43planned it.
14:44He planned every game, he planned every touch, he planned what he was going to do, he planned
14:48it, planned it, helped free me from feeling the shame of, oh, it must have been my fault.
14:56And I think doing this show for so many men, oh, it freed them.
15:08I need to do this for my family.
15:10This is not a surprise to anybody.
15:12It's really sad that it's got to this point, but I've got to do something for my own mental
15:16health, for my wife's, and for Archie's as well, because I could see where this was headed.
15:21They didn't want him to be a prince or a princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which
15:26would be different from protocol, and that he wasn't going to receive security.
15:33What?
15:35It was really hard.
15:36Well, first of all, this is in Montecito.
15:38It's just right down the street from them.
15:39It's right down the street from me.
15:41This had been postponed probably three times because this was 2021.
15:48I was still in my crazy, I can't leave the house period.
15:52So I didn't leave the house for 322 days.
15:56By the time we finally sat down, I think they were both ready.
16:02They didn't know, obviously, anything that I was going to ask them, but I had said to
16:07them ahead of time, I'm going to try to cover everything.
16:10This interview took three and a half hours.
16:12And as is always the case for me, I want it to be a win-win for you.
16:17So I was just trying to carefully go through everything that had come up in the past.
16:23I've always valued independence.
16:26I've always been outspoken, especially about women's rights.
16:30I mean, that's the sad irony of the last four years is I've advocated for so long for women
16:35to use their voice.
16:38And then I was silent.
16:43Were you silent or were you silenced?
16:48The latter.
16:51Okay.
16:52Very nice.
16:53I don't think I've done it since.
16:55I don't know where the hell that came from.
16:57Whoop.
16:58Okay.
16:59I wanted to be clear because was she silenced?
17:04Were people telling her not to talk?
17:07That's why I said that.
17:08I said it for clarification because I didn't want later to hear, well, no, it wasn't that.
17:13It really was that I was silenced.
17:15They wouldn't let me talk.
17:16So it was all for clarification.
17:18My father and my brother, they are trapped.
17:22They don't get to leave.
17:24And I have huge compassion for that.
17:26I used to live above the store at Marshall Fields.
17:29I lived above the store at Marshall Fields.
17:32So my apartment in Chicago was above the store.
17:36That was a big department store in Chicago.
17:38And on the way home, there would always be a display in the window of what was on sale.
17:44And there was the Clinique display of, like, you got a whole free Clinique kit of cleanser, night cream, eyeliner,
17:59lipstick, the whole thing in a little green bag.
18:02And I remember saying to myself, oh, I'm going to go get that free Clinique bag.
18:08And because I went to work at 530 in the morning to get home to 10 o'clock at night,
18:13I only had Saturdays to do it.
18:16And one day I go out on a Saturday that week to get the free Clinique bag.
18:21Marshall Fields, I'm going to go downstairs, take the elevator, go through the turnstile door and go in, get that
18:26free Clinique thing and go home.
18:29And every single step I made, somebody would stop me.
18:34And I'm like, they're going to be out of those Clinique bags.
18:37And I never got there.
18:39Because every time I went to turn this corner to go to this, there's a Clinique counter.
18:44I'm already at Revlon.
18:45It's right over there.
18:47I would get stopped by somebody else.
18:49And I ended up turning around and going back home.
18:52And I thought, well, how foolish of me to think I could go to Marshall Fields on a Saturday and
18:59not get stopped.
19:01And so that's the way I started approaching it.
19:05Like, if you don't want to be bothered, stay home.
19:08If you want to keep your privacy, then don't go out.
19:11If you want to go to a restaurant and you want to have, you know, you're having out to dinner
19:16with Stedman and Stedman's like, why people are coming up all the time, then let's stay home and eat.
19:21And so that has been my approach.
19:24Very different, though, I think, than being royalty or being even a movie star.
19:38My guest today is Kristen Cabot.
19:42And while you may not recognize her name, I am guessing that you will recognize her face from the most
19:49viewed video of 2025.
19:52And you thought it would blow over in a few days, as you had been told.
19:55As I've been told.
19:56Yes.
19:56That definitely didn't happen.
19:58But I came back to my house that was a place that was really like my safe space, as your
20:05home typically is.
20:06And it became a place that was as unsafe as any place could be because a local radio station gave
20:14out my address.
20:15Can you believe that?
20:16Look at her face.
20:16She feels like we do.
20:18What?
20:18I read the New York Times article.
20:21And as I was reading the New York Times article, I was like, whoa, I didn't know that.
20:25I didn't know that.
20:26I didn't know that she was separated from her husband and her husband was also at the concert and her
20:31husband was the person who came through and supported her the most through all of this.
20:35And I thought, so misunderstood, so devalued and taken down as a woman.
20:45Even if she had not agreed to speak to me, it's somebody I would have wanted to just call up
20:51on the phone and have a conversation with her about it and say, my heart goes out to you.
20:56So from that day I returned, there was, well, there was paparazzi there for weeks.
21:01They wouldn't leave.
21:02There was, I had people trespassing and looking in my windows.
21:06We had people doing drive-bys and yelling and honking.
21:10We had my phone.
21:11With your children home.
21:12Yes, with my children home.
21:14My phone was ringing around the clock.
21:17You know what?
21:17First of all, can we give a shout out to the guy in green?
21:20Everything you were thinking you were thinking, he thought at first and you were like, oh, yeah, I feel that
21:24way.
21:24He was like, oh, yeah, girl.
21:26Anyway, I think context matters and I think we've all lost the playbook on that because people just jump to
21:40their own conclusions without any kind of discernment.
21:46I just feel like you need context in order to have discernment and to come to a conclusion or a
21:56decision that's based on at least some version of the whole story.
22:02I think we learned a lot from her and I think, you know, even though lots of people have not
22:07been in a position where you're up on the big screen and you go viral and it's the most watched
22:12video of all times.
22:14Sometimes every one of us has had a moment.
22:18If you live long enough, you will have a moment where you don't want to get out of bed because
22:23something has happened that made you feel like you lost yourself or you lost your identity or you lost something.
22:31I remember for me, it was my sister had gone to the National Enquirer and sold a story about me
22:39getting pregnant at 14 years old.
22:43And that's the one big secret I had held my whole life.
22:49And I thought that if anybody ever knew that story, I carried so much shame about it.
22:55So much shame about it.
22:57I felt like if anybody ever heard that story, my life would be over.
23:01And I literally for three days could not get out of bed.
23:03So I know this feeling of not wanting to get out of bed.
23:07And anybody who's listening to me has had their own, I didn't want to get out of bed story.
23:14And so to be able to put that in context, I think is a powerful thing because I think it
23:20offers a sense of our own shared humanity and how we are, how we belong to each other.
23:29And that there's no story that you've experienced that someone else hasn't already felt.
23:34So my intention when I started the Oprah show, and I say it on the very first National Oprah, when
23:42I say, this is the very first National Oprah Winfrey show, that clip that I've seen a million times.
23:47One of the things I say is that one of the reasons I wanted to do this show is to
23:51let people know that you're not alone.
23:55And at the end of that 25-year run, that is exactly what we did.
24:04We allowed people to see that they are not alone, but that we all belong to each other.
24:17I think that's it.
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