In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in 2013, Oprah Winfrey opened up about why she didn’t have children after entering into her long-term relationship with Stedman Graham.
“If I had kids, my kids would hate me,” the busy media proprietor said. “They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
But having those feelings didn’t stop people from often trying to pressure Winfrey into marrying Graham and having children. In an interview with Good Housekeeping U.K. as the April cover star, Winfrey said that she has no regrets about her decision to go without marriage and kids, especially the latter. She has instead enjoyed helping other people’s children around the world through philanthropic work and, of course, through her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.
“When people were pressuring me to get married and have children, I knew I was not going to be a person that ever regretted not having them, because I feel like I am a mother to the world’s children,” she said. “Love knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if a child came from your womb or if you found that person at age two, 10 or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works.”
When speaking about her work with the girls at the Leadership Academy, Winfrey talked about the impact those young women have had on her.
“I have 172 girls, and 20 are in college in the United States and use my home as their home base,” she told the magazine. “It is more rewarding than I would ever have imagined. I was doing this to help them, but it has brought a light to my life that I can’t explain.”
So when it comes to children, in her own way, Winfrey has more than enough. But as for birthing and rearing her own? She’s honest about the fact that it just wouldn’t have been for her.
“For me it was perfect, because I didn’t want babies. I wouldn’t have been a good mom for babies,” Winfrey said. “I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage! But this is so rewarding.”
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