With the Oprah Winfrey Network launching on Jan. 1, the talk show queen gives a revealing interview in this weekend's Parade. Here are six revelations from the piece:
Sarah Palin does not scare her
After watching "Sarah Palin's Alaska," Oprah, a prominent Obama supporter, says her initial reaction was "Whoa! She is charming and very likable" and "America's going to fall in love with her." But, she isn't worried about a Palin bid for the presidency. "It does not scare me because I believe in the intelligence of the American public."
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Colin Powell offered her an ambassadorship, sorta
At the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors held at the State Department, Oprah sat with Colin Powell and remarked on all the beautiful portraits of ambassadors in the room. Powell took that to be an expression of interest in an ambassadorship, and quipped "name your country, baby, name your country." She laughed, but Powell pressed on saying, "No, seriously, do you want to be an ambassador?"
She has no political ambitions
Oprah says she has no interest in running for public office. "I know my lane and I can drive very well in it," she says. "I don't want to get in that lane."
She did not want to see Fergie on "Dancing with the Stars"
Sarah Ferguson, the scandal-and-bankruptcy-plagued Duchess of York, is featured in a six-part documentary on OWN called "Finding Sarah." That came about after the two had "a moment of real connection" when Oprah interviewed her last summer. The last thing Oprah said to her as she was leaving the interview was, "Don't let me see you on 'Dancing with the Stars.'" The two continued to correspond, and Oprah encouraged her to focus on herself, not some gimmicky reality show.
Michael Jackson made her more comfortable with launching OWN
Oprah says a line in a July Vanity Fair article on Michael Jackson resonated with her: "The mistake that Michael Jackson made is that he didn't recognize that Thriller was a phenomenon and he spent the rest of his life trying to chase the phenomenon." She realized that she didn't need to worry about her network achieving the same kind of success as her talk show.
She is not disappointed in President Obama
When asked if she's "concerned" or "disappointed" by Obama, whom she vocally campaigned for, Oprah says she isn't. "We've forgotten that we were on the brink of a depression when he took over this office. And as everybody celebrates the holiday season and sits around with their families, regardless of your circumstance, we could've had breadlines. How soon we forget that."
