On November 10, 1986, during a show about sexual abuse, Winfrey revealed that she was raped by a relative when she was nine years old. Since this episode, Winfrey has used the show as a platform to help catch child predators, raise awareness, and give victims a voice.
Liberace appeared in the first season of the show on December 25, 1986. He performed a Christmas medley; Winfrey said it was "the most beautiful I've ever heard". Six weeks later, he died of cardiac arrest due to
congestive heart failure brought on by subacute
encephalopathy. The episode was Liberace's final televised appearance. The show had only been on the air for just six months when, in 1987, Winfrey traveled to
Forsyth County, Georgia, a community in which, for 75 years, no black person had lived. Winfrey brought attention to racial tensions in the area, which had just experienced
several protests. The show was set up as a town hall meeting where residents expressed their divisive opinions on the matter. The meeting was becoming heated when one woman stood up and said: The "Diet Dreams Come True" episode from November 15, 1988, has become one of the most talked-about moments in the history of the show. After years of struggling to lose weight, Winfrey had finally succeeded in doing so. In July of that year, she had started the Optifast diet while weighing 212 pounds. By Fall, she weighed 145 pounds. To commemorate achieving her weight loss goals, Winfrey wheeled out a wagon full of fat to represent the 67 pounds she had lost on the diet. She showed off her slim figure in a pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans. However, after returning to real food she quickly gained back much of the weight she had lost. Winfrey now refers to that moment as her "ego in a pom pom salute." While doing a show centered on women drug users in 1995, Winfrey opened up about her personal history with drug abuse: In 1996, Winfrey spoke with seven of the
Little Rock Nine and three white former classmates who tormented the group on their first day of high school in 1957 as well as a student who had befriended them. Winfrey was grateful to have the remaining members of the Little Rock Nine on her show because she credits her success to those who have contributed to the
Civil Rights movement which paved the way for people like herself. Comedian
Ellen DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian during her appearance on the show in 1997 after appearing on a
Time magazine cover next to the headline "Yep, I'm gay." At the time, DeGeneres was the star of her own sitcom,
ABC's Ellen. The episode brought Winfrey the most hate mail she had ever received.
Clemantine Wamariya and her sister Claire appeared on the show in 2006 when Wamariya was selected as one of the winners of an essay contest held by Winfrey. It was revealed that the siblings had not seen their parents in 12 years after fleeing
Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Winfrey surprised the sisters by flying their family to Chicago for one of the most emotional reunions on the show. In 2007, the Marines of the
Second Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion Alpha Company and their naval corpsman, made the show their first stop after a seven-month tour on the front lines in Iraq. Winfrey welcomed the Marines with a big homecoming celebration where they were reunited with their loved ones on the show. On November 11, 2009, Charla Nash, who was mauled by her friend and employer Sandra Herold's pet chimpanzee
Travis, came to the show to speak out for the first time about the terrifying attack that took place just nine months prior. Nash wears a veil daily because the attack left devastating injuries to her face and she "doesn't want to scare people." During the show, she agreed to lift her veil for the first time in public. While taping the show's 24th-season premiere on September 8, 2009, the entire audience of 21,000 people, gathered on Chicago's
Magnificent Mile, surprised Winfrey by breaking out into a synchronized dance set to
The Black Eyed Peas' performance of "
I Gotta Feeling" (with new lyrics congratulating Winfrey on her show's longevity). The dance had been choreographed and rehearsed for weeks by a core group of dancers, who taught it to the entire crowd earlier in the day. During the farewell season, two hundred men who were molested came forward as part of a two-day event in 2010 to take a stand against sexual abuse. The men were joined by director and producer
Tyler Perry, who had also experienced sexual abuse. Winfrey hoped that the episode would help survivors suffering in silence release the shame. On January 24, 2011, Winfrey revealed that just before Thanksgiving 2010 she had discovered she has a half-sister. Winfrey decided to share the news on her show because she knew the story would eventually get out and wanted to be the first to address the matter.
Giveaways On the season premiere of 2004, every person in Winfrey's show audience was given a new
Pontiac G6 that was donated by
General Motors, worth about $8 million in total. The giveaway was the genesis of the oft-satirized Oprah quote, "You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!" For the premiere of the show's farewell season, the studio audience of 300 "ultimate fans" were rewarded by being given a trip to Australia with Winfrey (donated by Australian tourism bodies). Other giveaway shows included the annual
Oprah's Favorite Things show, in which the studio audience received products Winfrey considered good Christmas gifts.
Controversies In 1996, on a discussion of
Mad Cow Disease, Winfrey stated that the disease fears had "stopped [her] cold from eating another burger!" Texas cattle ranchers considered that quote tantamount to
defamation, and promptly sued her for
libel. The show was still producing new episodes at the time of the trial and could not go into reruns, so the production was forced to move to
Amarillo, Texas for a period of approximately one month during the proceedings. A
gag order meant Winfrey was not allowed to even mention the trial on her show. Winfrey was found not liable. The trial and move to Amarillo led to Winfrey meeting
Phil McGraw; Winfrey made McGraw a regular guest on her show shortly thereafter, which eventually led to McGraw getting
his own show, produced by Winfrey's Harpo Productions. A controversial episode, which aired in 2005 (though originally aired to little apparent notice in October 2003), saw guests discussing the sexual act of "
rimming", igniting criticism. The
FCC received a proliferation of complaints from angry parents whose children watched the show in an early-evening slot in many television markets. However, most FCC correspondents were prodded to write by
Howard Stern, a noteworthy target of the agency, as well as
Jimmy Kimmel, in an attempt to expose an FCC
double standard. During the
2008 presidential election campaign, Winfrey was criticized for apparently declining to invite
Republican vice presidential candidate
Sarah Palin to her show until after the election. A 2009 episode attracted criticism from the crowd after Winfrey suggested mothers should buy vibrators for their teenage daughters. Winfrey's program was criticized for featuring
alternative medicine and
junk science advocates such as
Suzanne Somers and
vaccine denialist Jenny McCarthy. In the lead-up to Winfrey's tour of Australia, the show was heavily criticized for airing a segment sponsored by the
McDonald's Corporation in which it was claimed by Australian TV personality
Carrie Bickmore that Australians liked to hang out at "hip
McCafés". This depiction of
Australian culture was greeted with surprise by many Australians, and anger throughout the Australian coffee industry, which claimed the statements did not accurately reflect the industry, painted the Australian coffee drinker in a bad light, and expected that the industry would be negatively affected by the statements. In the same episode,
McDonald's products were handed out to the studio audience. ==Final season==