Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her parents were an unmarried, teenage Baptist couple. Her father was a former coal miner who later on worked as a barber before becoming a city councilman while her mother was a housemaid. When Oprah was born, her father was in the Armed Forces and her mother had to travel north where Oprah grew up in rural poverty with her grandmother. Her grandmother had served as an early influence, teaching her to read books, and taking her to the local church. When Oprah was six, her mother took her to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they lived for a while in a dysfunctional home. Oprah's mother was not as supportive as her grandmother, and she was often molested by her cousin, uncle and family friend. When Oprah reached her teens, she got a scholarship at Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin. Later on in her youth, she rebelled and got pregnant, but lost the baby soon after she gave birth. She was then sent by her mother to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. There her father gave her an education, through a scholarship at Tennessee State University. At the age of seventeen, Oprah worked at a local radio station, while completing her college studies. This is where her career on television started.
Oprah Winfrey hosts her own show, the highest rated talk show in television history. This massively wealthy woman who grew up in poverty became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show was aired all over the United States. The revenue the show earned was so massive that she was given the option to own the show and start her own production company. In the early 1990s she was considered the richest women in entertainment and in 2000, they put a price on her net worth resulting to $800 million. From the television talk show stemmed her magazines entitled O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. She also released a few books, and established her own book club.
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