Key Points
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Oprah Winfrey says she’s now criticized for the politics of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, both of whom gained audiences when they appeared on her popular show.
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The former daytime talk show host explained how each of the men came into her life.
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Fifteen years after The Oprah Winfrey Show ended, Winfrey is marking its 40th anniversary.
Oprah Winfrey just thought that Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz could help her audience.
The former host of the phenomenally popular The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired nationally from 1986 to 2011, was asked in an interview with Emmy Magazine published Tuesday, how she feels now about having given them a platform.
“Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don’t have one thing to do with them,” Winfrey said. “At the time, the reason and intention behind me giving them their breaks was I thought they had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me.”
She acknowledged that she’s now criticized for “their politics or their views.”
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Both men later had their own talk shows and have since become supporters of the Trump administration, with Mehmet Oz overseeing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Dr. Phil McGraw serving on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.
She noted that McGraw had been supportive of her when she was going through a tough time, fighting a defamation lawsuit from the beef industry in 1998. He made his first appearance on her show that year.
“Dr. Phil, he was so practical, so down to earth, so real,” Winfrey said. “He would ride in the car with me every morning on the way to trial, where I’m literally sitting on trial for six weeks. I felt that he was so instrumental in helping me. I thought, ‘Oh, you could help a lot of people. You should come on my show.'”
Oz came into her life via her close friend Gayle King, and he made his Oprah debut in 2004.
“Gayle introduced me to Dr. Oz,” Winfrey said. “He explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements. I thought he had the language for explaining medical things in a way that was helpful to me. I thought it would be helpful to many other people. And that is how they ended up on the show.”
Dr. Phil McGraw and Oprah Winfrey at the Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 2002
Credit: Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic
At a time when everyone was watching the same handful of TV channels, Winfrey wielded immeasurable influence on her audience.
In addition to the two doctors, her show helped boost other expert guests, including financial expert Suze Orman and personal trainer Bob Greene, to higher levels of fame.
Winfrey, 72, celebrated the 40th anniversary of her talker just this week in a rare appearance with her longtime partner Stedman Graham. The couple reunited with Winfrey’s coworkers at Reunion, a restaurant owned by another former show guest, Art Smith, at Navy Pier in Chicago.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly