“It was my fault”: Oprah Winfrey Hated Being the Subject of Body Shaming for Over 2 Decades
Oprah Winfrey is best known for her talk show Oprah. When she started working in local media, she was not only the youngest news anchor but also the first black female anchor on Nashville’s WLAC-TV, now known as WTVF-TV. In 1984, she moved to Chicago to host WLS-TV’s low-rated morning talk show AM Chicago, which was only half an hour long at the time.
Months after Oprah Winfrey took over AM Chicago, the show overtook Donahue, which was the highest-rated talk show in Chicago at the time. Later, the show’s name was changed to The Oprah Winfrey Show and was expanded to a full hour. Despite being one of the best talk-show hosts ever, Winfrey was often mocked for her appearance as she faced scrutiny over her weight.
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Oprah Winfrey On the Body-Shaming Practices She Was Subject to For Decades
Show business or the entertainment industry has always looked down upon people whose weight is more than the industry deems acceptable. More so for the women. This has been a topic of great controversy for years now as the need to have the perfect body often leads to mental health struggles.
Oprah Winfrey was no exception as she too became a victim of the norm that women should have slim waists and curvy hips to be able to appear on TV. Winfrey claimed that she was one of the people who believed in the notion once.
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Not anymore though. In a cover story for PEOPLE, the talk-show host addressed the matter and said:
“It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself.”
Winfret then went on to tell how she felt when she landed on snarky fashion critic Mr. Blackwell’s list.
“I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, ‘Dumpy, Frumpy, and Downright Lumpy.’ I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”
There have been numerous instances when the snarky comments of some critics or others have managed to hurt people and for no good reason. Criticism is a good thing but only as long as it is constructive.
Oprah Winfrey No Longer Feels Ashamed About How Her Weight
Deprecating comments can have a very negative impact on the psychology of people who are on the receiving end and even have the power to bring down their confidence level. Surely, it must have taken a toll on the mental health of Oprah Winfrey to have been trolled for her weight publicly for decades.
However, Winfrey is no longer affected by all these things. She told PEOPLE:
“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for. I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.”
