Oprah Winfrey recalled feeling “shamed” by Joan Rivers on national television in the early days of her career.
On this week’s episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Showpodcast, Oprah looked back on her very first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1985. Joan Rivers hosted the talk show at the time, and Oprah recalled the late comedian making hurtful comments about her size.
“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 in The 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.”
