When The Oprah Winfrey Show premiered on Sept. 8, 1986, the host had no idea if it would even last a month, let alone 25 years and change the entire media landscape in the process.
“I knew my life was about to change,” Oprah Winfrey reflected in 2025 on her Oprah Daily site. “What I couldn’t have imagined was the force for good the show would become—the impact it would have on me, on my team (the best team in television), and on the millions of lives we touched.”
She had sensed, as a newswoman anchoring AM Chicago who would get reprimanded for empathizing too much with the people she reported on, that she was meant to do more with her voice.
“I never felt comfortable in my own skin,” Winfrey recalled to TIME in 2017. “I always felt like I had a pretend voice when I went on the air.”
So, when Oprah debuted with the episode “How to Marry the Man/Woman of Your Choice,” her authenticity radiated through the screen.
“The talk show really freed me,” she admitted. “I went only from what was in my heart…It was like coming home.”
