NEED TO KNOW
Oprah Winfrey appeared as the guest on the July 21 episode of the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast
Winfrey, , talked about her experiences growing up, revealing that her name as it is known today took shape then
While she doesn’t go by her legal name, Winfrey is grateful for the success that’s come with her own
Oprah Winfrey offered fans an explainer on the history of her name.
The media icon, 72, appeared on Baby, This is Keke Palmer, where the host and actress, 32, said, “I found out that your name… it was originally Orpah?”
Winfrey confirmed, “It was Orpah, from the Bible. Ruth, first chapter, 14th verse. You know, it’s that whole Ruth and Naomi story. And Ruth said, ‘Wherever thou goest, I will go.’ ”
“And then Orpah said, ‘I’m going back. I’m sorry, I can’t…,” she laughed, then continuing, “The road’s too long.”
Winfrey then explained that it wasn’t her decision to become Oprah, but a matter of her circumstances growing up.
“I was a kid! And nobody knew how to spell it. So it turned out, on my birth certificate, it’s O-R-P-A-H. And then people started calling me Oprah. And so, it’s just the difference between the ‘P’ being before the ‘R’ or after the ‘R’. So once they started with Oprah, that’s it,” she explained.
It went so far back that Winfrey wasn’t even aware of it herself until adulthood. She admitted, “I didn’t learn until I was like, probably 20 or something that, ‘Oh, this isn’t really my name. My name is Orpah.’ ” She also confirmed that her name legally remains Orpah Gail Winfrey.
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Elsewhere in the conversation, Winfrey shared her gratitude for the mentors who helped her along her climb to success, especially in the early days of her career, when there was great scrutiny of her appearance and her marital status.
“I had really strong mentors. I had the best. I had Maya Angelou. I had Sidney Poitier. I had Quincy Jones. I had Coretta Scott King. Those were my mentors,” she shared, explaining, “So when something would go wrong, I would call one or the other of those people, Maya and Sidney more so than anybody else.”
Winfrey credited Angelou with helping her get through a lot of the criticism she would receive from the tabloids, recalling, “The tabloids were wrecking me all the time. I was on the tabloids every week, whether for being too fat… just making up lies about me all the time, or, ‘Is she getting married? Why he won’t marry her. Now they have split up…’ There were two stories… and for 20 freaking years, they wore me out with it.”
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