Winfrey’s maternal alternative

Oprah Winfrey has no regrets about not starting a family, said Lacey Rose in The Hollywood Reporter. The media mogul—who grew up in poverty in Mississippi—has always believed in putting her career first, and knew she’d never have enough time for children. “If I had kids, [they’d] hate me,” says Winfrey, 59. “They’d 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 Winfrey has found a different outlet for her maternal instincts, by creating a girls’ school in South Africa. She talks daily with the kids—most of whom will become the first members of their poor families to go to college—about everything from boy troubles to handling success. “When you’re the most successful person in your town, everybody thinks you’re the First National Bank,” she says. Winfrey, who is reportedly worth $2.9 billion, learned that people’s needs depended on what they thought she had. “It got to the point where nobody asked me for less than $5,000. I felt pressured for a long time to say yes because I [couldn’t] lie and say I don’t have it. My salary is printed in the paper.”

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