OPRAH WINFREY : FROM POVERTY TO $3 BILLION.

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. As a child, Oprah Winfrey wore potato sacks because clothing did not always fit into the budget of her poverty-stricken family.

“The human experience of yours is stunning,” David Letterman told Oprah during the Ball State University interview. “I am so grateful for my years literally living in poverty,” she replied, “because it makes the experience of creating success and building success that much more rewarding.” Oprah has continued to build on her own success; she created a monthly magazine, the oprah magazine, has produced a variety of films, syndicated television programs, and a Broadway musical, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Color Purple. In 2011 she launched her own cable network, OWN. Time.com and CNN have called her the “world’s most powerful woman” and she has appeared on, Forbes estimates Winfrey's net worth at $3 billion l” list ten times since 2004—the only person to have appeared on the list that many times. And from 2004 until 2010, she was ranked among the “50 most generous Americans,” giving away nearly $400 million to educational causes.

Today, FORBES estimates her net worth$3 billion and she is the only black woman on the publication's list of the 400 richest people in America.

Before she became a media mogul and the queen of daytime TV, Winfrey suffered a tumultuous childhood.

She was born to a single teenage mother on welfare in rural Mississippi. She felt unwanted and was shuttled back and forth from her grandmother to her mother and then to her father by the time she was 14. She lived in poverty and suffered abuse for years. This does not sound like the beginnings of a media mogul who would go on to own a cable network and become one of America’s most influential people and the first African-American billionaire, and yet it is.

A Childhood of Abuse

In fact, Oprah had to overcome many challenges and obstacles before achieving the success she enjoys today. She began life on a small farm in Mississippi where her strict grandmother raised her. “I was beaten regularly,” she told David Letterman during a lecture series at Ball state university She recalled a time that her grandmother punished her for putting her fingers in a bucket of water she had retrieved from the well. “She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back and the welts would bleed,” she said, which then stained her good Sunday dress. “So then I got another whipping for getting blood on the dress.” She was also lonely much of the time and due to her family’s poverty, conditions were poor. But her grandmother taught her to read before she was three years old and she still recalls the positive reception she received when she recited Bible verses at her grandmother’s church. The sense of approval and acceptance she felt after speaking to the congregation stayed with her and influenced her future career choices.

At six years old, Oprah went to live with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since her mother worked long hours as a maid, Oprah was neglected. At nine years old, she was left in the care of her 19-year-old cousin who raped her. She continued to suffer sexual abuse from other relatives, including her mother’s boyfriend, until she was 13 years old, when she ran away from home. At 14, she became pregnant (the baby died shortly after birth) and she moved in with her father in Tennessee.

Oprah’s father made education a high priority for Oprah. “My father turned my life around by insisting that I be more than I was,” Oprah said in an interview. “His love of learning showed me the way.” She began attending Nashville East High School where she took public speaking and drama and was even elected school president. She received a full scholarship to Tennessee State University after winning a public speaking contest. She had a few broadcasting jobs before bei

ng named the talk show host for a morning show called People Are Talking. From there her rising career is well-known—she took a job as host of A.M. Chicago, which became the highest-rated talk show in Chicago and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Oprah developed a number of character traits as a result of living through these childhood traumas, many of which she now attributes to her success. “My story just helped define and shape me as does everybody’s story,” she said in the Letterman interview.

Winfrey also has given millions of dollars to charity, mostly directed towards three foundations: The Angel Network , The Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and The Oprah Winfrey Operating Foundation.

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