Oprah Winfrey has told Australian television host Tracy Grimshaw she considered killing herself when she fell pregnant as a teenager.
In an interview on A Current Affair on Monday night, Winfrey spoke about enduring sexual assault at age nine and losing a baby at only 14 years of age.
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“The only reason I didn’t kill myself when I was pregnant, the only reason – I actually thought about it and a couple of times I [attempted self-harm] – there was a part of me that always knew I was going to be okay,” Oprah told Grimshaw.
“That if I could just get through the shame and embarrassment, and if my father didn’t kill me, that I would be okay.”
“So I have always known this, Trace. I didn’t know what the future held for me, although I thought it would be a good future, but I knew who held the future.”
The 61-year-old mogul said the trouble didn’t stop when she began working in the television industry.
“I was sexually harassed, but I knew if I did anything about it or said anything about it that I would never work in television again,” Winfrey said of working in television during the 1970s.
“I always knew that trouble wouldn’t last always, and I would not always be in that position. I knew that whatever I was putting up with, I wouldn’t have to put up with forever.”
Despite her troubled past, Winfrey told Grimshaw she has found a level of inner peace.
“I used to be put off by being called a tall poppy, And now, I am a very bright tall poppy,” Winfrey said.
The prolific talk show host will return to Australia in December for a ticketed speaking event titled ‘An Evening with Oprah’.
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