“One of my biggest regrets”: Oprah Winfrey Still Gets Nightmares About Doing One Thing on Her Show 36 Years Ago That Encouraged People to Starve Themselves
Oprah Winfrey is one of the most popular talk show hosts in America. She is best known for hosting her namesake talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 years. She is dubbed the ‘Queen of All Media’, credited for revolutionizing the talk show culture by bringing in topics like literature, self-help, and spirituality.
Winfrey has often addressed her struggle with weight loss and obesity on her talk show and other public shows. While there is no doubt that she meant nothing but good through all the ways she claimed to have used to lose weight, all of these ways might not have been right. However, she is now coming forward to admit those mistakes. She confessed one such mistake she made decades ago.
Oprah Winfrey Admitted Her Biggest Mistake
Oprah Winfrey‘s daytime talk show continues to be one of the most popular ones to date. Some of the biggest moments in television history were made on that show as was the host’s biggest mistake. This mistake happens to be her wheeling out a red wagon loaded with 67 pounds of animal fat.
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The Colour Purple actress did that in an episode in 1988 to show the public the amount of weight she had lost. It was an accomplishment that she wanted to share, but how she chose to do it might not have been the best way. In an interview in 2011, she admitted that she regretted doing it, saying (via Today):
“Big, big, big, big, big, big, big mistake! When I look at that show, I think it was one of the biggest ego trips of my life.”
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In her recent appearance on a three-hour special named Making the Shift on YouTube with WeightWatchers, she addressed the mistake again.
“I’ve shared how that famous wagon of fat on The Oprah Show is one of my biggest regrets. It sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet set a standard for people watching that I nor anybody else could uphold.”
She further said that the wagon was a culmination of years of thinking that her struggle with weight was her mistake. She admitted that the shame she felt about her diet becoming a national joke took her a long time to process.
Oprah Winfrey on Promoting Diet Culture
Winfrey is a public figure whom millions of people have been looking up to for years. Anything she does or says reflects in the people who follow her ideals. In the special, she reflected on how the extreme lengths she went to to lose weight projected on the people through her show.
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The Butler actress’s role in diet culture has been huge and she is now reflecting on it.
“I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture. Through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years and online, I’ve been a major contributor to it.”
She also said that she has been in many weight-loss shows and makeovers ever since she has been working in television history. Not so long ago, according to a press release from the company WeightWatchers, she resigned from her executive position on the WeightWatchers board after being a part of it for almost a decade.
