Oprah Winfrey Quit 60 Minutes After Being Told She Was 'Too Emotional' When She Said Her Own Name

By Rebecca Fishbein  |  May 1, 2019 | 12:05am
CelebritiesDirt Bag
Oprah Winfrey Quit 60 Minutes After Being Told She Was 'Too Emotional' When She Said Her Own Name
Image: (via Getty)

Oprah Winfrey is Oprah Winfrey, and everyone else is not Oprah Winfrey, an unfortunate fact for the rest of us, but one we must bear. If you have navigated many decades of being Oprah Winfrey, you have, without question, earned the right to declare that particular fact with the emotional weight reserved for one million hopes, dreams, and free cars. Unfortunately, CBS didn’t see it that way.

Winfrey spoke to the Hollywood Reporter about her short-lived stint at 60 Minutes, one so short I didn’t even realize it was happening. (She was hired as a “special contributor” in 2017, according to Vulture.) Per the interview, she recently dropped that gig, noting the show was “not the right format for me.” But why?

How should I say this? Never a good thing when I have to practice saying my name and have to be told that I have too much emotion in my name.

Say what now?

I think I did seven takes on just my name because it was “too emotional.” I go, “Is the too much emotion in the ‘Oprah’ part or the ‘Winfrey’ part?”

Apparently, it wasn’t just her own name she declined to say with 60 Minutes’s requisite lifelessnes, but she was also told she had “too much emotion” in her voice while reporting out stories. “So I was working on pulling myself down and flattening out my personality — which, for me, is actually not such a good thing,” she said.

If I were a producer at 60 Minutes, and I had hired Oprah Winfrey, I would want the Oprah Winfrey, a woman known for the unrepentant and very loud enthusiasm she reserves for literally every celebrity who has ever walked this godforsaken planet. I would not want some drab, emotionless approximation of Oprah Winfrey, a soulless version who has never once been meme-ed for her exuberant declaration of love for bread.

Needless to say, I am not a producer at 60 Minutes, but merely a person who has spent the last 20 minutes trying to say “Oprah Winfrey” out loud in her own apartment using as little emotion as possible. I have failed at that task. I guess Oprah and I have that in common.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

I suppose I could snark on Kylie Jenner’s birthday tribute to Travis Scott, but I’ve been marathoning Younger for the last week and I think it’s making me a nicer person. Anyway, it seems they are very much in love, and possibly boning without protection:

Are they actually married now? Does anyone know? Do I even need to know? Probably not, but do let me know if they are, so I can send them a nice gift.

[Instagram]