Oprah Winfrey has confirmed for good that she will not be running for president in the 2020 United States election. The 64-year-old philanthropist, actress and talk show host told CBS News that she had no plans to consider putting her hat in the ring. “I am actually humbled by the fact that people think that I could be a leader of the free world, but it’s just not in my spirit,” she said. “It’s not in my DNA.”
Thousands called for Oprah to campaign for presidency after her powerful speech at the 2018 Golden Globes. While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, Oprah claimed that “a new day is on the horizon” thanks to the #MeToo movement. Oprah says she was flooded with support after the awards. “I had a lot of wealthy men calling, telling me that they would run my campaign and raise $1 billion for me”.
Despite this, she maintains it was never her intention to position herself as a potential presidential candidate. “I was just trying to give a good speech”, she explains, adding that she was genuinely “stunned” by the public’s reaction. “I was looking for a way to express what was going on in this moment in terms of gender and class and race. I cared about landing that speech in the room”.
While she won’t be going head-to-head with current-President Donald Trump, Oprah says she doesn’t plan to sit on the sidelines, either. “I do feel that I have a responsibility, as a person who has a big voice in this country, to use it to promote justice and kindness and goodwill in the world”, she admits. “But it has never felt to me that that was supposed to be political”.
Read more:
