Oprah’s father made education a high priority for Oprah. At 14, she became pregnant (the baby died shortly after birth) and she moved in with her father in Tennessee. She continued to suffer sexual abuse from other relatives, including her mother’s boyfriend, until she was 13 years old, when she ran away from home. At nine years old, she was left in the care of her 19-year-old cousin who raped her. Since her mother worked long hours as a maid, Oprah was neglected. The sense of approval and acceptance she felt after speaking to the congregation stayed with her and influenced her future career choices.Īt six years old, Oprah went to live with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But her grandmother taught her to read before she was three years old and she still recalls the positive reception she received when she recited Bible verses at her grandmother’s church. “So then I got another whipping for getting blood on the dress.” She was also lonely much of the time and due to her family’s poverty, conditions were poor. “She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back and the welts would bleed,” she said, which then stained her good Sunday dress. She recalled a time that her grandmother punished her for putting her fingers in a bucket of water she had retrieved from the well.
#Oprah winfrey success story series
“I was beaten regularly,” she told David Letterman during a lecture series at Ball State University. She began life on a small farm in Mississippi where her strict grandmother raised her. In fact, Oprah had to overcome many challenges and obstacles before achieving the success she enjoys today. This does not sound like the beginnings of a media mogul who would go on to own a cable network and become one of America’s most influential people and the first African-American billionaire, and yet it is. She lived in poverty and suffered abuse for years. She felt unwanted and was shuttled back and forth from her grandmother to her mother and then to her father by the time she was 14. She was born to a single teenage mother on welfare in rural Mississippi.
This is one in a series of profiles on famous people who overcame incredible obstacles, failed many times or defied grim odds in order to succeed.
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