Oprah Winfrey doesn't miss talk show
The veteran broadcaster helmed the Oprah Winfrey Show from 1986 until 2011 and while she loved being able to connect with the audience, she admitted making the programme and delving into hard-hitting topics became very "hard".
Speaking on the Let's Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa podcast, she said: "I miss the everyday conversation. I miss the conversations afterwards.
"As much as I loved the audience, I'm telling you, the nature of what we were doing every day became just so hard."
And Oprah admitted her producers would get "overwhelmed" if the programme didn't win awards so she eventually stopped submitting herself for the major prizes so her team could focus on "doing the best work possible and she could focus on "putting out the effort to do good things, to be a force for good in the world".
She added: "It's not gonna be measured by an award at the end of the year. It's measured in every viewer response.
"I've said many times, your legacy is every life you touch. It's measured in all the lives that are being affected by what you're doing and saying.
"I still hold in reverence all the opportunities we had to reach into people's lives and be there for them in ways that mattered."
The talk show was known for its generous gifts and giveaways to the studio audience, but Oprah admitted it became stressful trying to outdo the last competition, and had a realisation when one producer suggested sending someone into space.
She remembered thinking: "It is time to bring it down."
The final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show saw Oprah take more than 300 of her audience members to Australia for eight days, and while she enjoyed the experience, there were logistical difficulties her team hadn't thought of.
She said: "What we didn't realise is 90 percent of the audience didn't have a passport.
"So the producers were, like, out of their minds trying to get passports for the people in time for the show in Australia."
Oprah made her comments after Kelly - who co-hosts Live with Kelly and Mark with husband Mark Consuelos - asked when she would know it was time to "step away" from the show, which she has fronted since 2001.
The 71-year-old star insisted it wasn't yet "time" for her interviewer to move on.
She said: "First of all, it's not time for you to step away. And I, if I were advising you, I would say absolutely not.
"[You and Mark] are in a groove, and that groove continues to work."
Oprah praised the tone of the show for being "easy" and "light" but also "serious enough when it needs to be."
And Oprah argued that Live... is "vital and important".
She said: "Don't let go of the platform that you have.
"Do not do it. Don't even consider it, because I feel that the reach that you have, the audience that you've built, the family that you've created — both inside the studio and in the rest of the world — is really more vital and important now than ever before."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
12 hours ago
- Perth Now
Mark Hamill considered leaving the US when Donald Trump was reelected
Mark Hamill considered leaving the US when Donald Trump got re-elected. The Star Wars actor - who has three children with wife Marilou - told how he asked his spouse to consider relocating to either Ireland or London, England, after Joe Biden left office earlier this but she managed to talk him out of the idea. He recalled to The Sunday Times magazine: 'She's very clever. She didn't respond right away but a week later she said, 'I'm surprised you would allow him to force you out of your own country.' That son of a b****, I thought. I'm not leaving.' The 73-year-old star is hopeful there are still a number of "honest, decent people" in the US. He said: 'I still believe there are more honest, decent people than there are the Maga crowd. If I didn't, I'd move back to England.' Mark is horrified by the decisions Trump has made since regaining the presidency but has decided to look at the situation as the plot of a particularly entertaining novel. He said: 'The bullying, the incompetence, the people in place… The only way I can deal with it without going crazy and wanting to open my veins in a warm tub is to look at it like a thick, sprawling political novel. "It's entertaining in a way because this could actually be the end. Our status in the world has been crippled and that will reverberate for decades. "Making Canada a 51st state? Do you know how offensive that is? And then taking over Greenland and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. The distractions are hilarious.' Mark is likely pleased he didn't move away from the US because he is so content with his life, he was considering retiring until his two latest roles, in The Life of Chuck and The Long Walk, came along. He said: 'I was OK financially and really content with my family life. My three kids live nearby so they can visit. I love the dogs. I love my wife. "I love sitting out in the backyard with one of the two or three books I usually have on the go.'
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Perth Now
Kelly Ripa jokes she only wears bras 'to hold her microphone' on air
Kelly Ripa has joked she only wears a bra "to hold her microphone". The 54-year-old talk show host quipped that the average age of her bras is "thousands of years" because "they don't get a big workout". During a discussion about the history of bras on Live with Kelly and Mark, she quipped: "I'm not asking a lot of them, if you know what I'm saying. You know what I mean? "Basically, I wear a bra to hold my microphone on. That is why I wear a bra, not to hold anything else, because there's nothing else there. "I don't care if you're offended. Shut it! That is why I wear a bra, just to put a microphone on. So, I don't ask a lot." Her husband and co-star Mark Consuelos, also 54, joked his bra preference is "the ones that had the little snaps at the front", and she admitted he was "very good" at remvoing those. She teased: "I was so impressed. I was like 'wow' and I mean this guy knows his way around a bra." Last month, Kelly admitted she once debated a breast augmentation, as she joked about her small bust. She told the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast: "I have no boobs. "We know that I'm flat-chested. It's not a mystery at this point. It's almost a point of pride." Although she's been tempted in the past, she ends up reading "horror stories" about botched surgeries which puts her off. She said: 'I've gone to more breast augmentation consults than I would like to admit. "Like, every time I hear about the new boob guy, I go and I have a consult. And I'm like, 'What? What will you do?' And they always, like, say all the right things and do all the right things. "And, you know, because our cell phones listen to us … It pops up. And I scroll through, like, so many horror stories of boob jobs.' Meanwhile, a lot of her friends have had breast augmentations in the past, but it doesn't stop there. She explained: "They've had multiple because, like, every ten years or so, you have to, like, swap them out. "So let's say I get them at 55. Right? That means at 65, I have to swap them out. At 75, I'm on my second pair? Let's say I live to 85, I'm going under the knife again?"
Perth Now
06-08-2025
- Perth Now
Paul Weller refusing to see Oasis live because he doesn't like 'big gigs'
Paul Weller won't be going to the Oasis Live '24 tour because he doesn't like "big gigs". The Jam star - who is good friends with Oasis star Noel Gallagher - has confessed he won't be going to any of the reunited band's concerts this year because he isn't a fan of stadium shows and prefers to see bands perform in more intimate venues. During an interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2, Weller explained: "I've not been to see them [Oasis], no ... "I'm not a big fan of big gigs, I said to Noel, a few weeks or months ago: 'Are you going to do any warm-ups?' which he wasn't, but, I'd go and see something like that in a smaller venue, but I just don't like big gigs. It doesn't matter who it was, really." He added: "Inevitably, it doesn't matter too much where you're sitting unless you're right in the front row, you just end up watching the screens. It kind of spoils a bit for me because I want to see whoever is playing or singing, and I want to be able to see them." Weller, 67, went on to insist he's pleased for his pal Noel because the Oasis reunion has proved to be a "big cultural moment". He said: "You know how it's going to go for him, it's going to be mad. I said to him that it's going to be a cultural moment because the amount of people I speak to just out on the street, not necessarily who you'd think would be an Oasis fan, but they are all going to it, and it's a big cultural moment, I think that will be remembered forever ... "There's probably not too many bands like them [Oasis] at the moment, y'know, kind of guitar music. I can't think of any, not from the UK anyway, maybe Fontaines DC is different and people like that. So, I think it's definitely a younger audience who missed out on that '90s thing." The Oasis Live '25 Tour started in the UK in Cardiff with shows on July 4 and 5 before heading to the band's hometown of Manchester for five gigs at Heaton Park between July 11 and 16 After concluding the UK and Ireland leg - with gigs in London, Edinburgh and Dublin - Oasis will take the shows to North America, South Korea, Japan, Australia and South America, where the tour will conclude in Sao Paulo, Brazil on November 25.
