At the tender age of 14 she lost her son after he was born prematurely, and now Oprah Winfrey has revealed that she has chosen a name for her child.
Oprah Winfrey
Speaking to 12,000 fans in Melbourne’s Rod Laver arena, the 61-year-old did not hold back as she opened up about her turbulent childhood.
The TV host was raped at age nine by a cousin, then molested by two family members before falling pregnant unexpectedly when she was a young teenager.
According to news.com.au, the talk show titan told those in attendance: ‘I did have a son. And I named him Canaan because Canaan means new land, new life.’
She explained why she had only just chosen a name for her son more than 40 years after he died.
‘I did an interview with a reporter before I came to Australia and she said you should name the baby son who died,’ she explained, adding: ‘So I have named him, I had a little boy.
She told the crowd that the harrowing experience she faced in her youth made her determined to be ‘excellent’ in her chosen career.
And throughout the talk, Oprah urged her Australian fans, who shelled out between $99 to $379.90 for a ticket, to find their ‘authentic self’ and honour it.
‘I’m here to help you turn up the volume in your life,’ the media mogul told fans during the first stop in her multi-city Australian tour.
The billionaire added: ‘I have a calling, you have a calling. If you are born, there’s a reason for you to be here.’
Oprah, sparkling on stage in a floor length peach dress, spoke of humble beginnings growing up poor in the segregated US state of Mississippi and living until age seven with her grandmother, who had no electricity nor a washing machine.
Touching on her own career epiphanies, from news reporter to talk show host, actor, producer and girl’s school founder in South Africa, Oprah urged her followers to be true to themselves by listening to their ‘gut’.
‘The point of the journey we’re all on is “how do you become more of yourself?”‘
‘Nobody can touch you because you are as authentically you as you can be,’ she told audience members.
But many women, especially girls, lost this when they began behaving in a way to please the opposite sex, she claimed.
Her role, she said, is to help people discover their purpose and once they realise they are ‘co-creating their lives,’ they will be able to get closer to the ‘life that’s literally waiting for you’.
Oprah, estimated by Forbes to be worth $3.2 billion, told fans that her grandmother could never have imagined her success, only wishing for her that one day she would work for some ‘good white folks’ who might let her take food home.
Oprah joked she regretted her grandmother didn’t get to see her surrounded by some good white folks ‘working for me’.
Source: dailymail
