In actuality, that’s probably true. But a large part of her success is her knack for making people feel like she’s in touch with them.
Cumming, Georgia. A while back I posted a picture of the hanging tree I’d drive under on my way to hike Sawnee Mountain. They cut it down a only few years ago.
They didn’t actually refuse but thy pointed out that most of the recipients were low income and could not afford the income tax on the cars, about $6000. If they kept the cars they would be bankrupt. (Pontiac G6 ?)
The cars were, in fact, donated by GM from their advertising budget They ended up paying the gift taxes as well but not the income tax as I recall.
She reportedly selected an audience who expressed some need for a reliable car. But also it was a taxable event, so they might’ve been golden handcuffs for some of the audience.
Edit: link keeps mentioning a gift tax though, gifts are not taxable by recipients so I don’t think they understand what a gift tax is. Either GM paid gift taxes and therefore audience did not owe taxes, or it was a prize and the audience paid tax on “other income” and GM did not.
Yes, but they don’t have a lot of scope, even if they have the drive and initiative, to build their own production and other businesses on the back of their initial TV presence. They may set up a book club, launch an exercise video, get themselves into an all-purpose celebrity for various reality shows, and someone like Saville managed to parlay himself into a national treasure to pursue his own, somewhat different, interests - but then again, the market in the UK is just that bit smaller.
I’m currently dealing with the blowback from 50 coworkers whose annual salary is >$200,000 each because payroll deducted taxes from their paychecks on $250 in gift cards that they received as prizes in a contest. These are Visa gift cards, pretty much as good as cash, not gift cards to PF Chang or The Paper Store.
Not to mention Dr. Oz.
It was a prize - but a lot of people don’t know the difference between a “gift” where the giver might be liable for taxes and a “prize” which is income and taxable to the recipient. Of course, people also don’t know that gift taxes don’t actually get paid until millions of dollars of gifts have been made.
I’m pretty sure Oprah is the only one who has done this in the US. At least to the extent that Oprah has- Dr Phil was involved in The Doctors and Judge Judy has been involved with a couple of courtroom based shows in which she does not appear but that’s really it.
If Colbert was “thrilled” to see her, that’s pure celebrity brown-nosing. She’s one of those people who are famous for being famous. She got rich by pandering to the lowest common denominator with her feel-good-about-yourself bullshit.
The woman is a menace.
You might be thinking of Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, aka Jimmy Savile.
Not good analogies as neither of them were primarily famous as daytime TV presenters. A better analogy would I think be Lorraine Kelly. Though only if she’d manage, back when broadcast daytime TV was still a big deal, to build her fame to the point where she wads the daytime TV host who was synonymous with the genre (so if you thought of daytime TV you thought of Lorrain Kelly), and then build that into a multi-billion pound media empire.
Supposedly on one of those dates, he told her how much money he and Gene Siskel made on their syndicated show, which prompted her to pursue syndication, and that was the beginning of her vast fortune. Later, she produced other talk shows, movies and so forth. I’m pretty sure she’s worth north of a billion dollars.
Agree with most of the comments but wanted to add - I never understood Oprah’s show’s appeal to women, as most of that audience in the US are married or divorced mothers who are likely not well-off, which is the opposite of Oprah.
You two are being extremely naughty. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.
I’d forgotten he was one of hers. That’s even worse than Dr. Phil.
$2.8bn, according to the interwebs.
Wow. Last I checked, it was “only” about a billion. I don’t think she’s had her own show for a long while, though that doesn’t seem to have hurt her ability to make money.
Her love life is not actually important. What is relevant is that he supported and encouraged her decision to syndicate her show, which was a significant step in establishing her worldwide popularity.
I realize I made it sound like she was his creation or something, which is not the case at all.
In spite of the fact that Oprah is pretty much a self-made woman, is deeply in touch with her audience, and is extremely generous with her enormous wealth, some people despise her. She does inspire controversy. There is an implication that if you’re an intellectual, well-educated, highbrow you’ll automatically dismiss her and regard her with utter disdain. I don’t understand exactly why she triggers such a wide range of reactions from people. <scratches head>
Not to nitpick on a detail*, but the 
is bigger than the 
, which was the point of this thread.
* Well OK, I’ll do it.