“ Joan Rivers turns to me , and she state , ‘ severalize me why are you so fertile ? ’ … And I did n’t know what to do with that . ”
Oprah Winfrey recalled feeling “shamed” byJoan Riverson national television in the early days of her career.
“Joan Rivers turns to me, and she says, ‘Tell me why are you so fat?’” she said on the podcast this week. “On national television! And I didn’t know what to do with that.”
Heartbreakingly, Oprah said she “agreed” with Joan, who apparently told her: “I’ll let you come back if you lose 15 lbs. You need to lose 15 lbs.”
After this interaction, Oprah went to a “health retreat” to try to lose weight. “At the time, they called them fat farms,” she said.
Around this time, Oprah was grappling with the fact that her size may have lost her a role inThe Color Purple. However, it wasn’t long before she received an important call from the film’s producer,Steven Spielberg, who told her that losing weight wasn’t what she needed to do.
Notably, his call came just as Oprah was beginning to accept that she may not appear in the film.
As we now know, Oprah landed the part of Sofia, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Looking back, the 70-year-old said that whole experience became her “grounding teaching for the rest of [her] life and career.”
You can find the full episode ofThe Jamie Kern Lima Showhere.
Jamie Kern Lima / YouTube
