Oprah’s wedding bliss
THE ICONIC TALK-SHOW HOST PUTS LIFE INTO PERSPECTIVE
It’s more than a month since Oprah Winfrey was a surprise guest at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but the television legend is still feeling the love from the romantic occasion.
“It left me feeling that anything is possible through the power of love,” says Oprah.
“What the Meghan and Harry moment symbolised for me are the possibilities that await us all when we choose love in any form. It gave us hope, that wedding. We all want to feel as radiant, joyful and alive as Meghan looked on her way down the aisle to meet Harry. Both of them were glowing with happiness.”
The media mogul, who has been with longtime partner Stedman Graham (67) for 32 years, adds, “I can’t wait to see the goodness that will come from their union. Goodness that I know for sure will help change the way the world thinks about what is possible, even more than it already has.”
Oprah (64) says she was also impressed by the personal touches the couple added to their big day, and the fact that they asked US bishop Michael Curry to deliver what turned out to be an incredibly stirring sermon.
Although she’s been in many incredible situations during her long career as a talk-show host, and as a friend to the rich and famous, the wedding at Windsor Castle was truly something else, tells Oprah, who admits she was unprepared for the depth of emotion she felt upon arriving for the ceremony.
“It literally took my breath away. I exclaimed out loud to no-one in particular, ‘Whoa! This right here is a whole ‘nother level!’”
There had been drama the day before the service, when she realised the cream dress she was planning to wear looked white in photographs.
“I googled ‘Can you wear white to a wedding,’” reveals Oprah. “The answer was, ‘No, don’t risk it.’”
So she got in touch with designer Stella McCartney, who had made the dress, and her team whipped up a rosecoloured alternative overnight.
Oprah has also spoken out about how she spent time with Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland (61) before the wedding.
The Los Angeles yoga instructor spent a day at Oprah’s luxury mansion in Montecito, California, where the pair did yoga on the lawn and ate kumquats.
“Meghan draws a lot of strength from her mother,” observes Oprah. “Doria is classy, chic and confident, but not unapproachable.”
There have been rumours that Oprah invited Doria over to try to convince her to do an interview about her daughter, but Oprah says that wasn’t the case.
She adds that bags Doria was carrying when she left weren’t full of lavish gifts given in an attempt to win her over, as speculated, but kumquats from Oprah’s garden.
And while she’s setting the record straight, Oprah has also addressed the ongoing rumours that she’s considering running for the US presidency in 2020.
She was touted as a possible candidate to run against Donald Trump for the top job after giving an impassioned speech at the Golden Globes in support of the women who exposed the rampant sexual misconduct in Hollywood. But she now explains why she doesn’t want the job. “It would kill me,” Oprah says. “In that political
structure – all the non-truths, the bulls***, the crap, the nastiness, the backhanded backroom stuff that goes on – I feel like I could not exist. I would not be able to do it.”
She admits she’s come under pressure from lots of people who believe she would make an ideal leader.
“I had enough people, billionaires calling me, saying, ‘I can get you a billion dollars. I can run your campaign.’”
But she doesn’t want to be president and won’t be changing her mind, she says.
However, Oprah will continue to speak out about causes that are important to
her, such as the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, and is choosing to focus on the positive aspects coming from the campaigns.
“People talk about how these are dark times, but what if we shift the paradigm? Because I see it differently. I see, ‘Isn’t this remarkable that we are waking up?’,” she says.
Oprah’s previously been candid about the sexual abuse she suffered as a young girl, which resulted in her getting pregnant and having a baby at 14. Now, she has talked about how she has moved on from the traumatic experience of having a baby so young and of her son dying just weeks after birth.
“I saw someone the other day and they said how old they were – 45 – and I was thinking, ‘Well, how old would my son have been?’ I’m 64, so he would have been 50. But
I don’t think about it.
“Considering the fact I’ve interviewed so many people who were haunted by it [the death of a child], and who got stuck and never moved on, yes, I feel very liberated by it.”