Chapter 1: What is Oprah's weight journey and how has it shaped her life?
I wonder how a grocery store works. I'm Jesse Thorne. Everyone's kind of wondered something like that, right? Including my guest, Susan Orlean. And she didn't just wonder. She spent six weeks inside a real working grocery store. To me, that's really fun. We'll talk about that and her 45 years of brilliant, hilarious nonfiction. That's Bullseye.
Find us in the NPR app at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Are you good at being alone? Oh my God. I'm a master at it.
Tell me more.
That's a card design for me. I learned as a child how to be alone and how to be, how to feel full alone because there wasn't anybody. So there's no longing for something else other than what I actually had.
I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one and to flip one question back on me. My guest today is Oprah Winfrey.
The reason why I'm so empathetic and have such understanding and curiosity is because, wow, that happened to me too. I lived through that.
These days, everyone is all about intimacy and authenticity. But this is what Oprah was all about way back starting in the 1980s. She let her audience in on some of the most personal parts of her life, and it changed media forever. Along the way, she inspired generations of young girls to find their own voice, myself included. Oprah's got a new book out. It's called Enough.
Your health, your weight, and what it's like to be free.
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Chapter 2: How does Oprah embrace GLP-1s in her health journey?
She's written it with Dr. Anya Yastroboff. And it is my huge pleasure to welcome Oprah Winfrey to Wildcard. Wild card. Yay, Rachel. Wild card. Here we are, girl. Oh, my God. This is happening. So this is like building a car in front of Henry Ford, who invented cars.
I just have to say.
I mean, truly, my intro is... It's truthful. You invented modern interviewing. I mean, you really did.
Well, as you were saying that, I was thinking, oh, yeah, I think we did. We actually did do that. I don't sit around thinking about, oh, what we did or what you've accomplished. But, yes, when I started, there wasn't the level of. certainly nobody was being themselves. It was all television and you put on a face for television and you go on television, you act like you own TV.
And I think what our show did and before our show, who was the, whose shoulders I stand on is Phil Donahue. And I actually stopped watching Phil Donahue when I became a talk show host myself because I found myself imitating him. Right. You had to do your own thing. And I had to do my own thing. Yeah. So I stopped watching Phil when I started doing it myself.
It worked out. It worked out for me. So pleased for you.
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Chapter 3: What childhood experiences influenced Oprah's perspective on life?
So we're going to play this game. Let's do it. All right? First round is memories. Oprah, one, two, or three?
Two.
Two. Right in the middle.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. Were you intimidated or excited about leaving your parents' house?
Oh, 100% excited. Yeah? Yes. I remember leaving at 19, and I was leaving because I had a boyfriend. And my father was like, no 25-year-old is going to be coming in his house, and no 25-year-old just wants to go to the park and feed the ducks because the boyfriend before that was my age, 16.
And this boyfriend was 25. And this boyfriend was 25. Older guy.
And I left my father's house because I wanted to be able to spend time with a boyfriend and not have to be home by 11 o'clock. And also because I was already an anchor woman on television and having to be home by 11 o'clock. I did the 10 o'clock news.
When you were 19?
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Chapter 4: How did Maya Angelou impact Oprah's life and career?
So, yes, I was really excited to leave home.
You were obviously – I mean, you had success young in your life. Yes. Did you feel prepared, though, to be an adult at such a young age?
I felt – I didn't, you know what, I got immediately in debt because I ended up with a credit card and I ended up with $1,800 worth of debt.
And I remember taking out a consolidation loan at the First National Bank because I didn't know how I was ever going to get, I was going to ever get myself out of $1,800 worth of debt because with the interest payments, yeah, the interest payments, and I was only making like $100 a week. And so, so bottom line is, Yeah, I felt prepared. I've never felt like an imposter anywhere. Ever.
And the reason is, is because my faith is so strong. I was raised to believe that I was God's child from the time that I was a little girl. I remember standing on the back porch watching my grandmother, because, y'all, I was raised like Abraham Lincoln, okay?
So when I go to speak at schools, which I don't do so much anymore, but I remember the first time I was speaking at a school and the third grader said, did you know Abraham Lincoln?
Yeah.
And I said, no, but I was raised like him. So I understand why my story feels like Abraham Lincoln. No running water, raised with no running water, no electricity, outhouse, literally a bedpan that I would have to empty in the morning after, you know, my grandmother and I would, you know, use if we would go to the bathroom overnight.
And so growing up in a rural environment, I remember watching my grandmother, you know, boiling clothes because no washing machine, obviously, no electricity, boiling clothes. She was a domestic worker and she was doing these sheets in the backyard for this white family that she worked for.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of Oprah's new book 'Enough'?
But I don't know how I knew that. I just could feel inside myself that this is not going to be my life. And because by that time, I'd already been raised in the church by my grandmother, who was really strict religiously and religiously. I didn't know that I had a father or mother other than God. So I was told that God is your father. So I thought Jesus was my brother.
I mean, and if Jesus is your brother. Then you can do anything.
The sky's the limit. The sky's the limit.
So when I moved from my grandmother, after my grandmother became ill, I was sent to Milwaukee to live with my mother, whom I did not know. Right, right. And she had moved to Milwaukee as a part of what I now know was the Great Migration, people looking for a better life there. And she was also a domestic worker and living and rooming with this woman who was a very light-skinned Black woman.
And I think I'm healed from it, but my eyes still water when I tell the story. Very light-skinned black woman who saw the color of my skin and told my mother that I was not allowed to come in the house. And I was six years old and it was the first night away from home. And they, including my mother, made me sleep on this little porch that was the entryway to the house.
And I also knew, having never experienced racism before, I knew instantly it was because of the color of my skin. Which must have seemed confusing if you were a child of God, because how is this happening? How is this happening? Right, right. And so what got me through it, though, Rachel, was I would pray to God to protect me.
I was very scared out there on that little porch and also had never slept alone. I'd always slept with my grandmother. And I couldn't believe that my mother didn't say, this is my daughter and she has to come in with me. So... It was me and God. And I created this angel named Melinda that was protecting me, that was standing out on the porch and protecting me. So it was all in my imagination.
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Chapter 6: How does Oprah define freedom in relation to health and weight?
But I would pray to God because I could see that I felt like I was in danger, but the only thing that was going to really save me was the protection of something bigger than myself. And so that feeling of... faithfulness has been with me my whole life.
And although my vision and certainly belief about what God is and what the universe is has been magnified, and I know that God is in all and all people and all religions and all things, it's still the thing that has been the most profound guiding force in my life. And so therefore, Maya. Maya Angelou.
So I just feel like also, as Maya said in one of her poems called Poem to My Grandmother, I come as one, but I stand as 10,000. And so I never walk into any space where I've been the only woman. I've been the only black person within a 500-mile radius. I never feel like I don't belong there because I'm walking in with all the people who've prayed me up and wish for a better day.
And I come with not just my mind and body, but I come with the spiritual forces that are also living inside, around, above, and through me.
We're done. Oprah has answered all the questions in the wildcard deck after the first one. That was good. So the bottom line is you were prepared as all get out to leave your parents' house.
I was prepared to leave my parents' house. I wanted to so much.
Next three cards. One, two, or three.
Three.
One, two, three. Where would you go when you wanted to feel safe as a kid? Oh.
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Chapter 7: What lessons does Oprah share about self-acceptance and identity?
And there was a little space between the hydrangea bush and the house where the chickens would go. Chickens would go in there sometimes. And it was just a little, little, little, little, little tiny space. And if it was thundering and lightning or if I felt unsafe, that's where I would go. I would go there and I would hide. Yeah, with the chickens.
Really? Mm-hmm. Were they friendly? I mean, I know some chickens and they can be sort of nasty.
Yeah.
Our chickens were really very friendly because, you know, you're feeding the chickens every day. The chickens get to know you. You're right.
The chickens I've been around, I've been like the stranger.
I've been the interloper. You've been a stranger to the chickens. I was no stranger to the chickens. The chickens knew me. The chickens were my first pets. I got it. I got it. Okay, last one in this round. I think it's funny. Those were strange chickens. Yeah, that's right.
Yours were friends. Friendly chickens. One, two, or three. One.
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Chapter 8: How does Oprah view mortality and the legacy she leaves behind?
When have you felt the most homesick?
I felt the most homesick just recently. I was way in Australia, and my dog Sadie, who's 17, who had just turned 17, developed a bladder infection and also went into kidney failure. And I thought she was going to pass. And I told the folks who were helping to take care of her for me, just keep her alive until I get there. And so I literally...
Got off the stage speaking in Australia and flew home. But every day I was like getting FaceTimes and she won't get out of bed. And she was just hold on, hold on, hold on. So that's the most homesick I've ever felt. She's okay now? She's okay now. Yes. And now we have to give her injections every day. But I've done this before. I've had 21 dogs. What? Sadie is my 21st dog. Wow. So I've had 20.
My dad didn't want me having dogs growing up. And so I made up for it. Oh, that's right.
So you left. Did you have a dog when you were 19 when you first walked out of the house?
You're like, I get my own apartment. And I got I got my first dog and I got I got an Afghan hound. Oh, really? Yes. I need an Afghan hound like I needed a hole in my foot. I mean, the worst possible dog for me to get is my first dog. Shed it. It's bad. Listen. And they're not that smart, but they were beautiful.
So if you're in the car with the window down, their hair, they look like Farrah Fawcett. So I've had 21 dogs. What do dogs teach you about loving, caretaking? Well, they teach me a lot about spirit. They've taught me a lot about spirit because each one of them, as they've passed— I feel the essence of their spirit in different ways. And some have big ones and some have little ones.
Some have teeny tiny little spirits and some have bigger spirits. I mean, I had a dog, golden retriever, white cream golden retriever named Luke who passed away in 2018. I'd have married Luke. I would have married that dog. That dog. I still love that dog. Why? And I'm so sorry that I didn't clone that dog because at the time people were cloning their dogs and I'm like, who clones their dogs?
And now every time I see his picture, I'm like, I should have cloned you.
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