Presidential Campaign Rumors Had Oprah Asking, 'Why Are You Even Talking, Stedman?'

On Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Oprah Winfrey looked straight into the camera and announced, “I am definitely not running for president.” She was briefly (and jokingly?) booed. So much for our nation’s hopes and dreams.

This isn’t the first time Oprah’s refuted the presidential buzz that resulted from her triumphant acceptance speech at this year’s Golden Globes. On Kimmel, though, she filled in some details. While she says immediately after her speech backstage at the Globes, “people started saying stuff,” it was a comment that her partner Stedman Graham gave to the L.A. Times that really ignited the chatter. “It’s up to the people,” he was quoted as having said. “She would absolutely do it.”

Oprah says the question Stedman heard and was answering was about whether she would make a good president, not run for president, per se. Still, Oprah said her reaction to him opening his mouth at all on the matter was: “I said, ‘Why are you even talking, Stedman? Stedman why are you talking?’” There Stedman goes again, fucking everything up.

Still, Oprah claimed, “It’s a humbling thing to have people think that you can run the country.” Hm, seems like that would be the very opposite of humbling, but I’m no media mogul who can shift culture by delivering a speech and/or waving my hand, so what do I know?

On Kimmel, Oprah also briefly commented on the tweet in which Donald Trump referred to her as insecure. She said she couldn’t think of a time when she was insecure, but didn’t engage much with the content of the tweet because, “You don’t win by meeting any kind of negativity head on.” She told a brief story about throwing a party for Maya Angelou’s 80th birthday at Mar-a-Lago that Donald Trump attended. I wonder what they each did when “Kokomo” came on.