Oprah Winfrey Admits To Previously Battling Depression

In a recent interview with Vogue, media titan Oprah Winfrey admitted to battling depression in 1998. 

The entrepreneur revealed that the difficulty of her movie Beloved, which is a film based on Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, being beaten by Bride Of Chucky in the box office sent her into a very dark place. “I shall never forget Saturday morning, October 17,” said Oprah. 

“I got a call from someone at the studio, and they said, ‘It’s over. You got beat by Chucky.’ And I said, ‘Who’s Chucky? What do you mean it’s over? It’s just Saturday morning!’ I knew nothing about box-office projections or weekend openings. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and I said to Art, 'I would like macaroni and cheese for breakfast.' And soooo began my long plunge into food and depression and suppressing all my feelings.”

Winfrey continued to say that this depressed state only lasted six weeks. “I actually started to think, Maybe I really am depressed. Because it’s more than ‘I feel bad about this.’ I felt like I was behind a veil," she added. 

"I felt like what many people had described over the years on my show, and I could never imagine it. What’s depression? Why don’t you just pick yourself up?...That’s when the gratitude practice became really strong for me because it’s hard to remain sad if you’re focused on what you have instead of what you don’t have.”

You can read Oprah Winfrey's entire Vogue interview here

Photo: Getty Images


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