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Oprah Gail Winfrey, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist.

Winfrey was called “arguably the world’s most powerful woman” by CNN and TIME,  “arguably the most influential woman in the world” by The American Spectator, “one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th Century” and “one of the most influential people” from 2004 to 2011 by TIME. Winfrey is the only person to have appeared on the latter list on ten occasions. At the end of the 20th century, Life listed Winfrey as both the most influential woman and the most influential black person of her generation.

In 2007, USA Today ranked Winfrey as the most influential woman and most influential black person of the previous quarter-century. Ladies Home Journal also ranked Winfrey number one in their list of the most powerful women in America and then-Senator Barack Obama in 2007 said she “may be the most influential woman in the country”. In 1998, Winfrey became the first woman and first African American to top Entertainment Weekly‘s list of the 101 most powerful people in the entertainment industry. Forbes named her the world’s most powerful celebrity in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2013.

As chairman of Harpo Inc., she was named the most powerful woman in entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter in 2008. She has been listed as one of the most powerful 100 women in the world by Forbes, ranking 14th in 2014. In 2010, Life magazine named Winfrey one of the 100 people who changed the world, alongside Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Winfrey was the only living woman to make the list.

Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree with such assessments. Interviewed by The Guardian in 2006, Dowd said: “She is the top alpha female in this country. She has more credibility than the president. Other successful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart, had to be publicly slapped down before they could move forward. Even Condi has had to play the protégé with Bush. None of this happened to Oprah – she is a straight-ahead success story.” Vanity Fair wrote: “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.

Bill O’Reilly said: “This woman came from nothing to rise up to be the most powerful woman, I think, in the world. I think Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in the world, not just in America. That’s – anybody who goes on her program immediately benefits through the roof. I mean, she has a loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent.

In 2005, Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American history in a public poll as part of The Greatest American. In 1989, she was accepted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame.

 

 

Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash