No, it's not your imagination, Oprah Winfrey is having a moment. Here's why.
Everything's coming up Oprah.
Oprah Winfrey's turning 70 next month, though it seems the A-list author/actress/filmmaker/mogul/pop-culture queen is celebrating early by appearing all over the place: in art galleries, on talk shows, in movie theaters and in magazine cover stories. She's getting more pub these days than Santa.
Winfrey's a cultural institution whose resume speaks for itself, from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to Oprah's Book Club to hundreds of millions donated to charities. And in case anyone's wondering, she's still wearing a whole lot of purple – a "seminal" color in her life, she says, dating back to her Oscar-nominated role in Steven Spielberg's 1985 drama "The Color Purple" – and living up to a poem that Maya Angelou wrote for her on Winfrey's 50th birthday: "To continue to astonish a mean world with my acts of kindness and continue to live in the space of gratitude and move and have my being in all of that which is God."
Here's where Oprah's been lately:
Oprah snagged a painting in the National Portrait Gallery
A portrait of Winfrey now hangs in the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C., alongside the likes of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and many others. Unveiled earlier this month and display until October 2024, the painting shows Winfrey standing in her Montecito, California, prayer garden and holding an olive branch.
"The garden is just as important as her portrait because it's her most vulnerable space," artist Shawn Michael Warren told USA TODAY. (He also co-created a mural featuring Winfrey in Chicago's West Loop.) "And to get that version of her really played a significant role in capturing a portrait of her and capturing her essence, too."
Oprah Winfrey:The superstar dons purple gown for Smithsonian portrait unveiling
Oprah's opening a new movie musical take on 'The Color Purple'
Alongside Spielberg, Winfrey is a producer on the upcoming film (in theaters Dec. 25), based on the Broadway adaptation of Alice Walker's 1982 novel. Two of the film’s stars, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks, were in the stage version for a year in 2015 and reprise their roles. (They both also snagged Golden Globe nominations last week.)
In April, Winfrey unveiled the first footage from "Color Purple" at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Her role as Sofia (played by Brooks in the new movie) in Spielberg’s version was her film debut and “the biggest and most important thing that had ever happened to me and still is," Winfrey said. "It holds great personal meaning.”
Oprah Winfrey:Why her revelation about using weight-loss drugs is a game-changer
Oprah turned up on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'
Decked out in purple (obviously), Winfrey crashed "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and surprised Colbert's audience with tickets to the new "Color Purple," garnering a standing ovation. But Winfrey got more personal when promoting the film in a People cover story.
Oprah talked weight-loss medication, romance with Stedman Graham
Winfrey opened up about using weight-loss medications ("The fact that there's a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption"), making "hot water cornbread" for longtime partner Stedman Graham and when she's going to retire – which doesn't sounds like it's happening anytime soon. "I will never be done until my last breath is done," she said. "And whenever that happens it will be a peaceful breath."
Contributing: David Oliver
