Oprah Winfrey Net Worth

• First became a millionaire in 1989
• By 1995 her net worth crossed $500 million
• Became a billionaire in 2000
• Makes $300 million per year
• Owns $200 million worth of real estate
• Has donated at least $400 million to charity to date
• Is the richest self-made woman in America

Early Life

Oprah Winfrey emerged from poverty, abuse, and prejudice to become one of the world’s most powerful women. Orpah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954. That was not an error in spelling. Her given name was “Orpah,” after a biblical person from the Book of Ruth. People frequently mispronounced her name as “Oprah” when she was a baby, and the pronunciation eventually stuck. She was born in the Mississippi town of Kosciusko. Vernita Lee, her mother, was an unmarried teenage housemaid. Vernon Winfrey, Oprah’s real father, was serving in the military at the time of her birth. He went on to work as a barber, a coal miner, and a city councilman. It has been speculated that her biological father was another man named Noah Robinson.

When Oprah was a baby, she and her mother moved in with her grandmother. The family was impoverished, and Oprah was famously forced to wear potato sacks as school clothes. As a result, she actually rose from rags to riches.

Oprah and her mother relocated to Milwaukee when she was six years old, when her mother found a job as a maid. During this time, Oprah’s mother gave birth to a second child, Patricia. Patricia died of cocaine addiction at the age of 43 in 2003. Another half-sibling, Jeffrey, born to father Vernon, died of AIDS in 1989.

Oprah was transferred to live with her father Vernon in Nashville when she was 12 years old. Oprah ran away from home when she was 13 to escape the abuse she was subjected to. She became pregnant at the age of 14 and gave birth to a son who died shortly after birth.

She started at Lincoln High School in Milwaukee, but after succeeding in a special program, she earned a transfer to Nicolet High School in an affluent suburb. Oprah returned to Nashville after getting into some difficulty. She began to develop at East Nashville High School. At the age of 17, Oprah won the Miss Black Beauty Tennessee contest, which led to a part-time position as a news anchor at a small black radio station named WVOL.

Oprah received a scholarship at Tennessee State University to study communication. She dropped out of school at the age of 19 to pursue a full-time career in the media.

Media Career

Oprah became the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV. She was also the station’s youngest anchor in its history. When she was 22, she was hired by WJZ, a Baltimore television station, to co-anchor the six o’clock news, a coveted job.

She began co-hosting a talk show called People Are Talking in August 1978. By 1980, she was outperforming nationally syndicated Phil Donahue in the Baltimore market. By the end of her Baltimore tenure, she was making $220,000 per year, which equates to around $560,000 now after inflation.

Recognizing her potential, ABC offered Oprah her own 30-minute morning talk program in Chicago in 1984, which was produced by King World Productions. King World was also responsible for the development of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. The position included a four-year, $1 million contract. After adjusted for inflation, $250k per year back then is equivalent to roughly $600k now.

The Oprah Winfrey Show And Syndication Empire

Within a few months of AM Chicago’s debut on January 2, 1984, Oprah had risen from the bottom of the ratings to become the city’s highest-rated talk show, displacing Phil Donahue. The show was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 8, 1986, and was broadcast nationally, syndicated, and expanded to a full hour. Initially focusing on women’s issues, the show was later expanded to include topics such as health, spirituality, social issues, and charity.

Within a few months of the first air date, Oprah began to have doubts about the $1 million contract. Roger Ebert, another Chicago television personality, advised Oprah to meet with his agent, Jeffrey Jacobs. Jeffrey also represented Bill Cosby in addition to Ebert and his co-host Gene Siskel.

Jacobs was quick to point out that when the show got syndicated, Oprah was unlikely to make a single extra dime. He was more direct when he told Oprah:

“This is a slave contract. Slaves work for a fixed dollar. They’re willing to bank on a national show. This contract is for 4 years, totaling $1 million dollars, an effort to make you a highly paid slave.”

Jacobs described how Siskel and Ebert held a portion of their show’s syndication, as well as how Bill Cosby controlled a portion of his show’s syndication.

Oprah’s Road to Billionairedom

Oprah sacked her agency and returned Jeffrey Jacobs to King World/ABC to negotiate a new contract. King World declined to discuss a new deal. This would turn out to be a very fortunate rejection. Instead of handing away a small portion of the show’s syndication points, King World unintentionally allowed Jeffrey Jacobs and Oprah to build an empire.

While negotiations were stalled, Jeffrey and Oprah formed HARPO Productions on their own.

King World was in a difficult situation. Oprah was getting record viewership in Chicago at the time, and national syndication appeared to be a certain conclusion. They should have caved and gave Oprah a piece of the profits. It would have cost them several million dollars every year.

Finally, King World returned to the table, but Oprah was no longer looking for a cut of the backend. King World execs were taken aback when she revealed that she intended to produce the show HERSELF. She and Jeffrey would cover all production costs for the show through HARPO Productions at HARPO Studios, and then pay King World a predetermined price to syndicate the show nationally. The compensated employee was now King World.

Oprah owned 90% of HARPO. Jeffrey owned 10%.

Following that, Oprah and Jeffrey negotiated a much larger overall contract with ABC that encompassed movie productions, a magazine, books, and, most critically, the opportunity to launch more TV shows under her production umbrella. All of these shows’ production would take place on her 3.5-acre HARPO facility.

That isn’t everything.

Oprah and Jeffrey even went so far as to negotiate a share in King World Productions. Oprah would profit from every show produced by King World, including Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, under this agreement.

CBS purchased King World for $2.5 billion in stock in 1999. When the deal was completed, Oprah held 1% of CBS. She also ended up holding a sizable portion of Disney shares as a result of a transaction she struck with ABC in the mid-1990s.

While her contemporaries on talk shows in the 1980s, such as Sally Jesse Raphael, Phil Donahukvodfime, and Jerry Springer, would go on to make tens of millions of dollars through standard contracts, Oprah would go on to make BILLIONS.

Oprah became America’s first black female billionaire when she became a billionaire for the first time in 1999/2000. Around this time, she was earning $300 million per year from her own show as well as those of Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray.

Oprah was the fourth-richest celebrity on the planet as of mid-2021. Kanye West ($6.6 billion), Steven Spielberg ($7.5 billion), and George Lucas ($10 billion) were the only billionaire celebrities who were wealthier at the time.

Oprah Winfrey is America’s richest self-made lady.

Endorsements and Other Projects

Since 2015, Oprah has been on the Weight Watchers board of directors. She was given $43.5 million in shares when she was hired by the corporation. This share is now worth more than $400 million. She secured a multi-year partnership with Apple in 2019 to produce shows for the tech behemoth.

Oprah has appeared in a number of important films, including “The Color Purple” in 1985, “Beloved” in 1998, “The Butler” in 2013, and “Selma” in 2014.

She has created a number of television shows, documentaries, and miniseries.

Oprah has been nominated for two Academy Awards as of this writing, one for Best Supporting Actress for “The Color Purple” and another as a producer for Best Picture for “Selma.” She got the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 2011.

She has received 18 Daytime Emmy Awards (from a total of 26 nominations), one Golden Globe Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.

Oprah Real Estate Portfolio

Oprah has hundreds (perhaps over 1,000) acres of land in the United States worth at least $200 million.

She lived in a 9,625-square-foot Chicago mansion from 1985 until 2015, which she sold in 2015 for $4.625 million. Multiple foyers, a solarium, a butler’s pantry, a room totally dedicated to wine storage, a breakfast nook, an office, a terrace, high ceilings, spectacular views of the water, and three bedrooms are among the features of the East Lake Shore Drive residence.

Montecito: Her most notable real estate asset is a 23,000-square-foot property in Montecito, California (near Santa Barbara) that she purchased for $50 million in 2001. This house is now valued at least $90 million. She paid $29 million for a 23-acre farm estate near Montecito in 2016. She paid $6.85 million buying the house next door in 2019, expanding her Montecito footprint by four acres. Oprah owns 67 acres in Montecito in total.

Washington: Oprah held a 43-acre estate on Orcas Island in Washington State from 2018 to 2021. She paid $8.275 million for the home in 2018 and sold it for $14 million in July 2021.

Colorado: She spent $14 million on a property in Telluride, Colorado, in 2014. The 8,700-square-foot house is situated on 3.25 acres. It is a “smart house” designed by IT executive Bob Wall. If Oprah wants to water the house plants from her office in Chicago, where the Oprah Network is headquartered, she can. It also has a heated driveway and a Finnish-style spa.

Maui: In 2002, Oprah purchased her first home on Maui. She has spent up to $60 million over the years to cobble together 160+ acres on Maui. She spent $32 million on the property next door in a single transaction.

For years, Oprah’s property manager had scouted areas of Hawaii in search of the ideal location for a holiday home. He eventually located a remote place in Maui’s countryside, on a rocky hillside overlooking the ocean. While there were a few houses in the area, her property manager was concerned that condos would be erected on the remaining land, destroying the beauty. So Oprah threw down and bought the entire neighborhood. She first purchased a 9-acre parcel for $3.2 million, followed by 34 acres for $2.9 million and 6 acres for $2.1 million.

And that was merely to protect the scenery of her new vacation home. She also spent more than $15 million to acquire another 102 acres in Maui’s Lehoula region. Some properties will be developed for homes and businesses, but the majority will remain undeveloped or set aside for conservation.

Philanthropy

Oprah has given more than $400 million to charity as of this writing, with the majority of her donations going to educational initiatives. She has funded almost 400 scholarships to Morehouse College in Atlanta.

She founded Oprah’s Angel Network, a charity that helps NGOs all over the world, in 1998. To date, Oprah’s Angel Network has raised more than $80 million for a number of charities. Oprah personally pays for all of the Network’s administrative costs, allowing 100% of the cash generated to go directly to organizations.

Oprah founded the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa in 2007. She has personally contributed $40 million to the school’s funding to date. As of this writing, the school has 322 students and hopes to expand to 450.

Oprah’s Angel Network raised $11 million for Hurricane Katrina relief, with an additional $10 million from Oprah.

She gave the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture $12 million in 2013. That same year, President Barack Obama awarded Oprah the Presidential Medal of Freedom.