Oprah Winfrey celebrated her 60th birthday Wednesday in relatively quiet fashion
The self-made media mogul tweeted out a photo of long-stemmed roses she received from actress Cicely Tyson, thanked supporters for a birthday video from fans, and celebrated a couple days early with a birthday spin class. But according to an E! Online report, she canceled plans for a big bash.
While she kept her birthday low-key, she has made waves over the course of her unparalleled career. To honor her six decades, we rounded up six of her most controversial moments.
1. Barack Obama endorsement
The talk-show host — often described as one of the most influential women in the world — made headlines in 2007 when announced she was formally endorsing Barack Obama for president. It was the first time Winfrey had thrown her support behind a political candidate.
When Larry King asked what inspired the decision, she pointed to her relationship with Obama and his wife.
“I know him personally,” she said. “I think that what he stands for, what he has proven that he can stand for, what he has shown was worth me going out on a limb for – and I haven’t done it in the past because I haven’t felt that anybody, I didn’t know anybody well enough to be able to say, ‘I believe in this person.’”
2. Taking on beef
Her beef with the cattle industry might not have been a battle she planned to have, but Oprah didn’t shy away from it. The fight began when Winfrey invited a former cattle rancher onto her show in 1996 to talk about some of the more controversial practices in the industry, and she said his revelations made her want to stop eating hamburgers. When the price of beef dropped shortly thereafter, a group of cattle ranchers decided she was to blame, and they sued her for their losses. Eventually she won that lawsuit, announcing after the decision, “free speech not only lives, it rocks!”
3. Schoolhouse rocked
No stranger to philanthropy, Winfrey beamed with pride in 2007 when she opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. But a matron who worked at the boarding school was charged with more than a dozen counts of abuse against the students.
Winfrey apologized for the allegations (the accused employee was ultimately acquitted) and quietly cleared out all staff who might have been connected to the alleged abuse and refocused her attention on the school. By 2012 she celebrated her first graduating class with positive press and a special on her network.
4. Talking Trayvon
After George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Winfrey weighed in on the case with a strong comparison.
“Trayvon Martin paralleled Emmett Till, let me just tell ya. In my mind, same thing,” she said during an interview with TheGrio’s Chris Witherspoon in early August. “You can get stuck in that and not allow yourself to move forward and see how far we’ve come.”
When the comments drew a backlash, she refused to back down. Questioned about it again on Morning Joe later that month, Oprah said, “Trayvon is the Emmett Till of our era.”
5. Obama & racism in America
Oprah spoke out on race again while promoting her new film, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”









