Oprah Winfrey recalls how Joan Rivers made comments about her weight on TV

Oprah Winfrey has reminisced about how host Joan Rivers on 'The Tonight Show' commented about the television personality’s weight, which made her feel like she should be “shamed.”

Winfrey, who felt she had just lost a role in 'The Color Purple' due to her weight, said on The Jamie Kern Lima Podcast that she appeared on 'The Tonight Show' in 1985 to discuss her programme titled 'A.M. Chicago'. However, the conversation turned to Winfrey’s size, reports People.com.

“Joan Rivers turns to me and says, ‘Tell me, why are you so fat?’” Winfrey recalled.

“On national television, I didn’t know what to do with that. I just said, ‘Oh, I just love potato chips, Joan',” she added.

Winfrey shared that Rivers, who passed away in 2014, told her, “Shame on you.”

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Winfrey said: “I agreed with Joan Rivers, who told me, ‘I’ll let you come back if you lose 15 lbs. You need to lose 15 lbs (6 kg).’”

“She said to me on national television,” Winfrey continued.

“And I accepted it. I accepted that I should be shamed, because how dare I be sitting up here on The Tonight Show.”

Winfrey said she and Rivers “agreed that I was going to go away and lose 15 lbs. And of course, I didn’t lose the 15 lbs. I went and ate my way to another 10 lbs (4 kg).”

Winfrey shared that she had gone away to “this health retreat,” which at the time was called a “fat farm,” to lose weight.

Winfrey then shared that she was working on accepting that her weight had cost her a role in the 1985 film 'The Color Purple'. She later received a call that changed everything for her.

The call was from producer Steven Spielberg, who told Winfrey, “I hear you’re at a fat farm.”

“‘You lose a pound,’ he told her, ‘you could lose this part.’”

Winfrey shared that the phone call was a full-circle moment for her because she had to finally “let go” of the part.

“The instant I let it go was the greatest life lesson I have ever received because I physically felt the release,” said Winfrey.

“The second I did that, it changed,” she said. Winfrey later got the role of Sofia in the same film, which earned her an Academy Award nomination.

“That became my grounding teaching for the rest of my life and career. Do everything you can, work as hard as you can, and then let it go.”

Indo-Asian News Service