In an interview with Barbara Walters for last night’s ABC special “Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2014,” Oprah Winfrey surmised that she couldn’t have had the monumental success she has had if she had had children.
“I could not have had the life or the career in the way that I had it if I’d chosen to have children,”she told Walters, in a statement surely to ignite more skirmishes on the never-ending battlefield that is the lives of American women.
Winfrey has always been a living challenge to the stereotype of what a Black woman should be. She has never fit into the nurturing, homemaker, only-there-to-support-a-man role. Instead, she has shown Black women everywhere that it is okay to chose a different route for yourself, to make your career a priority, if that is something you truly want.
She went on to discuss the ending of her famed talk show “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011 and how it’s affected her.
“I don’t miss that because you know you’re only as good as the last show,” she said. “You’re always chasing the numbers. And this is the thing: The 25 years are a blur to me because I just worked.”
Though her talk show is no more, Winfrey has never slowed down, owning her own television network, magazine and producing movies.
Her newest project Selma, which opens in theaters in January, is already receiving Oscar buzz and widespread attention. With the film, she is hoping to evoke more than just good box office numbers.
“It’s one of the important stories of our history, and it’s important not just for African-American people, obviously, to know it, but it’s important for our country,” Winfrey said of the new film, according to Hollywoodreporter.com “What brings me to tears and to my knees is when the actual footage is used at the end of the film, and you see … each person from different backgrounds, different races, taking care of each other in that 54-mile march. The fact that that can happen. And then you look out on the streets and some of the same thing is happening today. When they say, enough is enough. ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ exactly as Dr. King said.”
