70 Fascinating Facts About Oprah Winfrey

Is there anything that Oprah Winfrey can’t do?

In the nearly four decades since the Queen of All Media, who’s turning 70 on January 29, became a household name, she’s proven that she’s a powerhouse at just about everything she puts her mind to.

Longest-running daytime talk show host ever? You betcha. Academy Award-nominated actress? Oh yeah. Multi-media mogul extraordinaire? You know it. Humanitarian par excellence? Mm-hmm. We could go on and on and on, but you get the point. She’s not known simply by her first name for nothing. 

But life hasn’t always been easy for Oprah. The self-made billionaire’s formative years were the very definition of hard-scrabble, with allegations of physical and sexual abuse, extreme poverty and a teenage pregnancy that ended in tragedy.  

When the news broke that she’d birthed and lost a son at just 14, “I took to my bed and cried for three days,” she wrote in the February 2007 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Referencing the relative who’d sold her story, she continued, “I felt devastated. Wounded. Betrayed. How could this person do this to me?”