Oprah Winfrey scandals

Oprah has been accused of coming between TV psychologist Dr Phil McGraw and his wife Robin.

Oprah Winfrey started her television career in 1973 when she became the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV.

In 1976 she moved to Baltimore’s WJZ-TV news, where she worked as co-anchor. A botched perm in the late seventies caused Oprah’s hair to fall out and she had to wear a wig during broadcasts.

After being criticised for showing too much emotion on air, and sometimes crying while reporting tragedies, Oprah moved into the daytime talk show arena and launched the Oprah Winfrey Show. Within a year she was topping the ratings and had obtained ownership and control of the program.

In 1989 Oprah slimmed down to 64kg on the Optifast Liquid diet. She dragged a 30kg slab of animal fat onto her show to celebrate the amount of weight she’d lost. But within a year she had regained the weight.

In a 1990 interview with sexual abuse victim Truddi Chase, Oprah admitted she had been sexually abused as a child by a number of her family members.

When she won the award for Best Talk Show Host at the Daytime Emmys in 1992, Oprah had reached her greatest weight ever — 107kg. The following year she lost 32kg after hiring a personal trainer and taking up running. Doctors believe that years of extreme yo-yo dieting have put a serious strain on Oprah’s health and may have lowered her life expectancy.

In 1993, Oprah signed a US$4 million contract to tell her life story through a biography. She withdrew the finished book at the last minute and it was never published.

In 1995 Oprah publicly admitted she’d used cocaine 20 years earlier. Two years later her ex-boyfriend Randolph Coot unsuccessfully sued her for allegedly blocking a tell-all book in which he revealed details of Oprah’s drug use.

Members of the US cattle farming industry took Oprah to court for libel in 1996 after she declared on her program that she would never eat another burger. The comment was made after she interviewed a vegetarian activist about Mad Cow disease — causing US beef prices to plummet the following day. After a two year court battle, Oprah won the case.

Oprah guest starred alongside Ellen Degeneres when she famously “came out” on her program in 1997. This sparked rumours about Oprah’s sexuality, particularly her relationship with her best friend Gayle King.

Oprah responded to the rumours by saying, “I understand why people think we’re gay. There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it — how can you be this close without it being sexual? People think I’d be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn’t admit it? Oh, please.”

Despite the gay rumours, Oprah has maintained a 24 year relationship with Stedman Graham (pictured here in 1987), although the pair never married.

A number of Oprah’s friends and family members have sold her secrets to the press. In 1990 her half sister Patricia Lloyd revealed that Oprah had given birth to a son when she was 14 years old. The baby, who was born prematurely, died after only a few weeks. Oprah has since learned that her father Vernon Winfrey is planning to write a tell-all book about her.

Oprah dotes on her five dogs as if they were her children. Unlike some of the less-trustworthy members of her human family, she wants to provide for them after her death so she’s set aside a whopping $30 million trust fund for her pets.

Now single, Oprah has been romantically linked with TV medical guru Dr Mehmet Oz after the pair were caught in a compromising clinch recently.

Oprah was devastated when accusations of abuse emerged at the South African girls school she founded last year. The accused staff member has since been removed from the school.

After almost four decades working in the entertainment industry, Oprah has announced she’s ready to retire. But her TV career isn’t over. She recently launched her own television network called OWN.

Oprah recently revealed she had a secret half-sister, which she only discovered she had this year. Oprah made the announcement on one of her final 25th season shows where she interview her half-sister Patricia and her mother Vernita Lee.