It?s been a revelatory 48 hours for Oprah Winfrey fans, followers, and skeptics. On Monday, The New York Times published a sprawling profile on the media empress, revealing that Winfrey had undergone a breast-cancer scare so secret that she hadn?t even told her B.F.F., Gayle King. The same piece also reports that the former talk-show host continues to struggle with her cable network, OWN?now ?emerging from low ratings and management shake-ups??and has considered shutting down her print magazine, O, should it prove unprofitable. (To prevent the latter from happening, the media titan explained that she wants to target twentysomething readers rather than her current 49-year-old median reader . . . which might be difficult considering the tea-sandwich recipes and Suze Orman advice columns on retirement funds.) All in all, a humanizing piece?save for the detail about how she drinks sparkling water from a silver straw?that shows that the self-made billionaire is indeed fallible and even prone to under-eye circles.
The same day as the Times piece was published, the noticeably fatigued Winfrey traveled to David Letterman?s alma mater, Ball State University, in Indiana, for a oddly intimate discussion considering the forum (an auditorium), the host (Winfrey?s formerly estranged acquaintance, Letterman), and the audience (hundreds of college students who had camped out the night before). The conversation, which Winfrey later likened to therapy, began when Letterman, not known for his armchair analysis, asked her to tell him about Kosciusko, Mississippi, where she grew up. The chat took a turn for the serious when Winfrey began to describe the beatings she received as a child, her experiences being raped, and the child that she had at the age of 14. The candid discussion became so engrossing that when a Ball State professor appeared onstage to wrap things up, both Letterman and Winfrey waved her off and continued talking for a full 45 minutes.
Ironically, these same admissions may have been the kind of fodder that would have earned Oprah ratings gold on her former talk show. Alas, neither conversation was taped for television, only written about in another struggling media format?papers.
Related: Can Oprah Regain Her Perch as Television Titan After OWN Stumbling Blocks?
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