Do we like Oprah Winfrey?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of LGBTQ+ advocacy and big giving, with one real stain: she launched two men whose politics now draw fire.
Oprah is the rare celebrity whose fame came from taking on hard subjects. Her talk show ran nationally from 1986, and GLAAD says she championed LGBTQ stories when doing so could hurt a career. That is a long way from chasing trends.
On the harm check, her own words and record are solid. In a 2023 graduation speech she said the LGBT+ community is under attack, and GLAAD's CEO credited her work on HIV, LGBTQ families, coming out and advocacy for trans people. She was named a GLAAD honouree in 2024.
The asterisk is the company she helped build. She made Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Oz famous, and in August 2026 she told Emmy Magazine that people criticise her over them because of their politics or views. Her answer was that everyone has their own path and she doesn't have anything to do with them. Some will say that's a fair line, others that it's a bit late.
On Harvey Weinstein, she has said she was friendly with him and worked with him on The Butler, but didn't know what was going on. She described him as someone who pressured her over guests. The Atlanta Black Star reported she was accused of knowing about his alleged misconduct, and she denied it.
Her record in court is clean. A federal jury sided with her in 1998 when Texas cattle ranchers sued over a mad cow disease segment. In 2000 the Fifth Circuit upheld that result, finding she and guest Howard Lyman did not defame the ranchers.
She has also owned her mistakes. In 2024 she apologised for her part in diet culture, called the 1988 wagon of fat moment one of her biggest regrets, and urged people to stop the shaming. Not many people with her kind of power say sorry that plainly.