I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time.
Taking time to be more fully present.
Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now.
I just want to say you've been on my mind for months.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
This is very exciting.
Well this year, in every issue of O, I'm interviewing a different person every month and what we're calling our year of big questions.
And our big question for this issue, the April issue that you're in is, what are you willing to stand for?
And I said to my team, wow, the best person to talk to about that is Jimmy Kimmel, because it seems like you just stepped into a different layer of yourself, because I always believe we're growing into who we're supposed to be and that you're just becoming more of yourself.
But it seems this past year was a watershed year that you stepped into a space for yourself.
I'm going to go through the list.
You started by hosting one of the most controversial Oscar ceremonies we've seen in a while and doing a fantastic job of that.
You made headlines speaking out on gun control.
You lost a dear friend and mentor, Don Rickles.
You turned 50. And in that emotional monologue on your show, you shared that Billy had been born fighting for his life after he was diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect.
So your experience, I believe, with Billy's surgeries was somehow a catalyst to bring you front and center into the raging healthcare debate.
Do you see it that way?
Absolutely. And it was a very small thing.
And I know this sounds odd, but I was at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, which is just an unbelievably great hospital.
And I saw how the nurses and the doctors treat the parents and the children and the compassion that they have.
It's a place that, of course, they see this sort of thing every day and you would expect that you become numb to that and you become numb to the pain that the families are experiencing.
But there's no sign of that at all.
And I was just in the elevator with a couple of families and they were obviously low income families and they were getting just as good treatment as everyone else.
And it made me very happy that we have Children's Hospital.
And then I, at that very time, it just so happened that healthcare for Children was being threatened by our government.
And I just felt like, I don't know if I believe in signs or that things happen for a reason, but in this case, it was hard to see it otherwise.
And I knew that when I came back to the air on Monday night after the surgery, there would be a lot of attention.
And I knew that when I spoke about my son, which I felt I had to, people would pay attention.
And I wanted to attach something very positive to it.
I wanted to help other families who aren't as fortunate as our family.
And I just wanted to remind America that whatever we are, Republican, Democrat, otherwise, that everyone cares about their friends and coworkers, children and their well being.
And I think that crosses party lines.
And I think that really just speaking honestly about it reminded people of that.
And that's what I set out to do.
And I think that it had a positive effect overall.
I don't know that I go to the lengths of saying it saved Obamacare, but I feel like it didn't hurt.
And that really was my goal.
How much did you think about what you were going to say?
Because it felt so, the reason why it was so riveting is because we could all tell it was certainly coming from the soul of you, the heart of you.
There just was nothing more vulnerable or authentic.
So had you planned what you were going to say?
Did you know where you were going or did you just start talking and let it flow?
I did have some of it planned.
I wanted to make sure I mentioned all the doctors and I wanted to make sure I had the information correct.
So I did some research before I spoke.
A lot of it was just me.
I really wasn't intending to cry.
I knew I probably would.
I was trying not to do that.
So I had to deal with that as it was happening.
But you know how these things are.
Some things are so painful and so difficult to write and to kind of bring out of you that you wait until the last minute to do it.
I thought about it a lot in the hospital and I thought about what I might say, but I didn't really know what I was going to say until right before the show.
Had you already done a lot of crying in the hospital?
There wasn't a lot of crying in the hospital partly because everyone there kept reassuring us that it was going to be okay.
But also I felt like it would upset other members of my family if I got upset.
So you try to keep it together.
I think it's something that we all try to keep it together because one person starts crying and everyone starts crying.
And they're looking to you to keep it together and they're looking to you as the signal of how much do I have to keep it together, right?
Yeah. Well, certainly my older children do.
And I think my wife and I look to each other in those circumstances and there were secrets that we kept from each other that we only revealed after the second surgery.
And the biggest one was that oddly neither one of us wanted to get, I think subconsciously we didn't want to get too close to the baby because we didn't know what was going to happen.
So after that second surgery that comes out of you and you are able to really embrace your child in the way that you should be embracing your child.
And I don't know if that's right or wrong or common or uncommon, but when I told my wife I was feeling that way, she said, Oh, I'm so happy you said that because I was feeling that way too.
And I didn't want to express it.
It feels very natural that you are covering your heart to protect it from being seared.
You know? Yeah, that's definitely what we're doing.
When I experience a lot of disruption my own life, I always ask, what is this here to teach me?
That's my favorite question in crisis.
What is this here to teach me?
What did this year teach you?
It taught me what's really important.
It taught me that I have a much more powerful platform than I realized I had.
And it taught me that in times like these, and I don't know that we've had a time like this, but I'm sure in the history of our country, we have that we need to drop our labels and remember that we're supposed to take care of each other.
And I think there are a lot of people that use the word Christian and who that becomes a marketing tool in some way.
But if you are a Christian and if you do believe in, forget the specifics of whatever church you belong to, but the basic teachings of Jesus that you must take care of your neighbor.
I mean, you have to do that or else you cannot call yourself a Christian.
And I hope that people who do call themselves Christians remember that every day continually.
Well, has this made you a more religious person or a more spiritually connected person this past year?
I've always been religious and spiritually connected.
I was raised Catholic and I was fortunate enough to go to a great church with a great priest to whom I'm very close to this day.
And it's interesting because I think people assume because you're a comedian or because you're a reverent or whatever you want to call me that that's not a part of your life, but it always has been.
And I learned a lot of good things from the church and from my parents.
And I wouldn't say I've become more spiritual, more religious, but it's that I've definitely I guess I have.
You know, I've been praying a lot more.
That's for sure. So yes, I guess is the answer.
So you performed a monologue every night for years and years, but it feels like you stepped into a new space, a more meaningful space.
And it's interesting because I know comedians are always going for the funny.
But have you had a reckoning with funny and also substance?
Do you feel that shift like we all do?
I think so. I think that I don't want to abuse my position.
I know what my job is.
And my job for the most part is to entertain people and to make people laugh.
And if I can be selfish every once in a while and talk about something that is important to me or that is serious, then I do want to take that opportunity.
And I'm careful about not overdoing it because I think that if I do overdo it, it will hurt the overall message or my goal overall, which is primarily children's health care.
So while there are a lot of things I feel strongly about, I do pick my battles, I guess.
And you know, 90 % of the time I'll joke around, but some of the jokes aren't joking.
And some of the jokes I hope make people think, and then there will be times where I'm serious on the air, which I think is okay.
And I think it's something that other late night talk show hosts have done from time to time.
And it's been very effective.
And it's something that for me, I have a background in radio.
So that was always part of my approach as an entertainer.
It's just something that gets whittled out of a nightly talk show.
It tends to be joke, joke, joke, joke, joke.
And I think it's better, especially now that we have a lot of shows that there's some variety there.
Well, it's so interesting because I remember your monologue the night after the massacre in Vegas, and you were very emotional there too and spoke at length about gun control.
And I remember you saying something like it feels like somebody's opened a window into hell or onto hell.
Had you consulted with anybody before you gave that monologue or did you just write that yourself or just came out of yourself?
I wrote that myself.
And some of it was just me speaking.
But I woke up that morning and I found out what happened in Las Vegas and it doesn't make any sense to me.
And I don't think it makes sense to, I don't even think it makes sense to the people who are trying to sell you guns.
I think they know that it's wrong.
I think that they know it, but they just don't want to open that dam.
They don't want to give at all because it will cost them money.
And I think that's, it's evil is what it is.
And for something like that to happen in your hometown, I mean, it's always horrible when it happens, no matter where it happens.
But human nature dictates that the closer it is to you, the more you feel it.
And I definitely felt it.
And I have to say, it's very frustrating to me that all this time later we still haven't done anything significant and very little has happened to change anything.
You know what else is frustrating?
What else is frustrating?
And I, just having experienced this with the Thomas fire in California, followed by the mudslides.
And I realized that after a day or two, certainly for those of us in my community after a week, you're no longer in the news.
But I was walking down the street two weeks later and the mud is piled just as high.
The homes are still as devastated.
People are out of their homes.
Their loss of life was continuing to climb.
Now it stands at 21 in our little small community.
And what I realized is, I mean, I knew this before, but long after the headlines are gone, people are still grappling with the devastation.
And I tell you, I think about Vegas all the time in the same way that I think about the 9 11 victims.
I was walking down the, just walking down my staircase the other day.
And I was thinking for some reason, came into my mind, all the people who actually survived it, who are having to relearn how to walk and relearn how to feel and relearn how to overcome paralysis and relearn.
You know, nobody thinks about how the devastation continues.
That is a level of empathy that you have that I think most people don't.
And I don't think you can fault people as a group for having short attention spans.
We do, but we also have to do our best to remind each other.
You know, there are people who, in your community, who lost their lives, who lost their children in Las Vegas, who lost their lives, who lost their children, who lost their parents, and who are going to think about this every day, maybe all day for the rest of their lives.
I mean, people's lives are ruined for no good reason.
We have enough pain in the world.
There are enough things we can't control.
There are accidents and disease and all these things that we work so hard to fight.
We have so many people trying to find a cure for cancer, and we have the cure for this stuff.
We just choose not to use it.
And I thought what you just said earlier is that the reason why the other side won't agree to any part of gun control is because they feel if they give an inch, then it means they have to give everything.
But it seems like in a world of reasonable people, we can all agree that if you have a mental illness or who deserves to have gun checks that there should be some restrictions on the people who have guns.
The idea that you could be on the no -fly list and still own a gun, it's just, that's it in a nutshell.
I mean, it's literally a nutshell because it's nuts.
I mean, the fact that that can happen.
And this is something that I think Donald Trump even spoke about when he was running for president.
You know, occasionally he has a moment of common sense and he said something to the effect of that's not right, that shouldn't happen.
Of course, these guys rushed into his office and said, never say that again.
You know, that's not our position, but that is the position that should be our position.
That if you're on a no -fly list, you really shouldn't be able to have a gun.
So was it scary at first to get so personal and issue -oriented when your job is to make people laugh before they go to bed?
It is a little, it's uncomfortable.
I don't know if it's scary, but it's uncomfortable and it's not something that I look forward to and I definitely feel a sense of relief when it's over.
But there is an ugliness there.
And there, what is scary is that there are a lot of angry people, people whose anger is directed in the wrong place that you hear from continually, especially with the advent of social media, but there's also the good old U .S.
mail that you receive a lot of nastiness and threats and wishes for bad things to happen to you and your family.
And that I just, you know, I don't understand because there are a lot of people I disagree with, but I do recognize when somebody, when they say something and I realize that they have nothing to gain by saying it, it's just something that they believe.
I mean, this is not, I don't, in fact, not only do I have nothing to gain personally by talking about this stuff, I in fact, commercially, I lose.
This is, you know, I used to be popular among Republican television viewers and now I'm not if you believe these polls that these people do.
So, you know, I don't know what to make of any of it.
So you lost some viewers.
Do you know that for sure?
Well, you know, I don't know, you don't know anything for sure in television, but there have been some relatively credible companies that do these sorts of polls that one of them just found.
I just saw one a week ago that I am the most unpopular talk to host among GOP voters.
And I think I used to be the most popular talk to us among.
Or you were riding the middle where people 50 -50.
That's what I'd heard.
Yeah, you used to be.
It was 50 -50. Yeah, with Democrats and Republicans.
So, you know, that's the kind of stuff that is not ideal when you're trying to get people to watch your show.
But I wouldn't change any of it.
Yeah, because you decided that you were going to stand up for what you felt was important.
Yeah. So when you lost your dear friend and mentor the legendary comic Don Rickles, what was the greatest lesson you learned being around Don for all those years?
Did he impact your whole life or just your professional life?
Being around Don, first and foremost, was always a lot of fun because he loved being around young people and he loved telling his stories.
And I love not just hearing his stories, but having the opportunity to bring friends and people who I knew admired Don into his circle.
And he just got so much out of it.
And they got so much out of it.
Ryan Gosling is somebody who saw me with Don Rickles.
And he said, oh, boy, I love Don Rickles.
I said, well, you want to go to dinner with him?
And he said, well, do you think you'd be interested in that?
I said, oh, I think so.
I'll ask him. And so I called Don.
I said, right. And Don knew every movie Ryan Gosling had been in his life were delighted.
And we had this great dinner where Don told all his stories, all his Frank Sinatra stories, all his Las Vegas stories.
And it made me very happy because I know Ryan loved it.
But mostly I know Don loved it.
And I think that's one of the best things about being you know, there are a lot of things that aren't so great about being famous.
But one of the best things about being famous is you can get old and young people still want to talk to you.
And and I don't think most people are lucky enough to experience that.
And so from Don, I learned well, just personally, I learned just that I don't know what I learned, but I just love being around him.
And I think he liked being around me a lot too.
But professionally, he taught me a very small but very important lesson that I took to heart and I employed.
I used to come out and speak to the audience before the show every night.
And sometimes it would go on for a while.
Sometimes I talked to the audience for eight or 10 minutes.
And Don was on the show.
And he saw me doing this.
He was backstage watching.
And after the show, we went to dinner, as we always did.
And he said, you have to stop that.
The first time the audience should seize you should be when you step on stage to start the show.
And I said, well, I feel like I have to, you know, get them going a little bit beforehand.
He said, No, no, don't do it like this.
So I said, All right, I'll try it.
And I tried it. And he was absolutely right.
I mean, the effect of them seeing you for the first time when you're on camera is, yeah, that's what you want.
Stronger. That is exactly what you want.
Exactly. Yeah. And maybe everybody knew this and I didn't.
But I was fortunate enough that Don taught it to me.
So do you sort of feel the energy of him now that he's passed?
Do you you know, because Maya was a big mentor, mother, figure, friend to me.
And I you know, I kind of feel her abiding with me, actually.
I do. I feel a responsibility to talk about him because he would always say to me, keep my name alive, kid, kid, keep my name alive.
Mentioned me on this, you know, and so I actually did a special on ABC with Robin Roberts and in memoriam special because I wanted to do a primetime tribute of some kind to Don.
And so we decided that it would be a nice thing if we did Don and we did some other people, Tom Petty and some others who passed away over the course of this year.
But Don's family loved it.
And and I love doing it.
And it was a chance for me and for Don's friends to get together and talk about him and tell stories about him.
And I know that there's nothing that would please him more than that.
And if he's looking down on us, I know that he's really happy.
We're talking about him.
Yeah. And by the way, the fact that Oprah is talking about him right now would he would would send him to the moon.
I mean, I hope you know how tickled he would be and how happy his wife Barbara is going to be about the fact that we've spent this much time talking about him.
I know. Every time I ever saw him, he always had some incredibly funny and sometimes embarrassing, humiliating thing to say to me walking into a room.
So I try to come in sideways, you know, from behind, as you can imagine.
Great. What a gift it is because he knows people want a little shot from Don Rickles.
It's something that you just want.
I mean, if you grew up, you know, when we did watching Johnny Carson, it's all you can it's better than almost anything.
And he delivers it.
I have to ask you, was there a more difficult stand for you to take gun control or health care?
Gun control was more because there's, I think almost everyone was on board with the health care.
And it's tough to criticize a guy who's talking about his son who just had heart surgery, whereas people have been having this gun control battle for a very long time and people really dig in.
And people do have the idea that you're going to come into their home and take their guns from them.
And that's I don't know, I guess that's understandable.
I don't think it is.
I'm not against guns in general.
I know people hunt and a third of the country owns them, at least a third of the country owns them.
Yeah, and they need them to protect themselves from wild animals if they live in remote areas.
But we know what happens.
I mean, the facts are the facts.
More people who shouldn't be shot by guns get shot than people who I mean, not that anyone should.
But you know, there's a lot of talk about protecting yourself from intruders.
And the reality is most of the time people wind up shooting themselves or their kids get hold of these weapons and do something terrible.
And I just think we would be much better off with fewer of them.
I think the response on social media has been fascinating too, to your stance on both issues, health care and gun control.
One viewer tweeted that it takes a lot of heart and courage to speak for the people who can't speak for themselves, which is what you've been trying to do.
And another social post I saw said, Jimmy Kimmel has evolved into quite a spokesman for the average Joe.
Do you see that as now a part of your role?
Have you become a, you know, your purpose speaking for those who don't have a voice, the average Joe or Jane?
I do. I think I'm more worried about the below average Joe to be honest with you.
I think the average Joe is who gets a lot of focus.
Of course, you know, the wealthy people like ourselves are very fortunate.
And now it seems that billionaires are running this country, which is terrible.
But I just try to, if something bad happens to me or to someone I know, I try to make something good out of it.
Sometimes it's a small thing.
Sometimes I get a flat tire and I get a funny story out of it.
And sometimes it's, you know, a life threatening congenital heart disease that I'm able to, at the very least, I was able to raise a lot of money to support Children's Hospital.
There's no way to modify anything else.
And I'll continue to do that.
And shine delight on an issue that, you know, most people don't think about unless they're in the throes of it.
So I'm sure. And to inspire the people who are really doing it.
You know, it's one thing to do a fundraiser and to check in a few times a year and tell people this is what's important to me, but the people who are doing it, I was honestly very surprised to hear that nurses and doctors at these hospitals aren't showered with gratitude at all times.
I mean, there was a nurse at Cedars -Sinai where our son Billy was born, who was just kind of taking care of him.
And she was alert enough and attentive enough to notice that his color wasn't right.
And thank God she did.
Her name is Nanoush.
And thank God she did because who knows what would have happened if she hadn't.
And, you know, we thought everything was perfect, you know, he was wrapped up and laying in the little warmer and he was six pounds, 10 ounces.
He wasn't small. He was the perfect size.
And she just, you know, that just doing her job well saved our son's life.
So was that the moment you knew this was going to be an issue, the Nanoush moment, or you were speaking of seeing other families when you're in the elevator?
Yeah, it really was walking around Children's Hospital and being in the cafeteria and just kind of you don't know what's, you know, you go to certain hospitals and, you know, you get put in a nice room and you get special treatment because people know you from television.
And then you wind up in a very different situation where you're observing others who aren't fortunate enough to have those things.
And you see them getting that same treatment.
And all I could think of is I want this to continue and I want to help to support this.
How is Billy doing?
He's great. He went to the cardiologist today and he'll have another surgery when he's around six or seven years old.
But in the meantime, he's doing great.
I was rolling around on him on the bed this morning and he loved it, you know, the beginning stages of wrestling.
So will you always be on alert?
Will you be anxious?
I heard you joking that the doctors have cleared him to at least get a bronze medal, but will you be that parent where when he is in a baseball game, when he's running, when he's you that you're going to be always be on alert and anxious?
No, no, I will not.
And I'll tell you why because I've been very lucky to hear from not just parents, but also people who've had this heart surgery.
I met a guy who was 60 something who had this heart surgery.
Oh, okay. Good. That makes you feel better, you know, and then weirdly, a lot of the stories and I'm sure they're curated because they know these people know what will make me feel good.
But a lot of the stories about these children who grew up and had these heart surgeries, they're super athletes.
And I don't think there's a connection there.
But every story I hear is like, and now they run track and they just want a metal and there's a high school team.
And so it makes me realize that he's going to be fine and that we shouldn't coddle him and worry and we should treat him just like any other kid.
That's fantastic. Do you worry about the people who don't agree with your political stances now that people know your political stance?
The National Review said that you were misleading Americans and clouding the debate.
The New York Post printed Jimmy Kimmel needs a healthy fact check.
What do you say to your critics, if anything?
I hope that they never wind up in the situation that I was in or that the people in Las Vegas were in or that the children and the parents in those hospitals were in.
But I do think that if they ever did find themselves in that situation, their opinion would change.
And I think that it's easy to sit there and write a clickbait article that fires a certain group of people up.
And I think it's disgusting.
And I think some of the media, the way they've behaved, I mean, going into my personal life and calling interior decorators that I've had a small claims suit with in the past to try to dig something up to discredit me is really the ugly side of all this.
But I really think and I believe and I know that I'm probably wrong, but I think that if I sat down for a half an hour with each one of these people, I could change their minds or at least make a lot of headway, as far as changing their minds goes.
But with that said, you know, this is a world in which we see things that are enticing and I'm no different than anybody else.
And we click on it and they wind up getting a little bit of money from that when you multiply it.
They wind up getting a lot of money from it and they're going to keep doing it as long as that's the case.
I don't know anybody who's had a decorator that doesn't have a small claims or some issue.
She contacted me and said, I would never say anything bad about you.
I'm so sorry this happened and here's what's going on.
Yeah. To get through a decorator and not to have some kind of issue is is a major, major accomplishment in life anyway.
Yeah. How do you think we can begin to bridge the divide in our country on these issues?
Is there a how? Is there a way?
I think speaking to people in person, I think talking to your parents is really important if you're a young person and we have to be respectful of the fact that the future isn't so much ours anymore.
I mean, it's theirs and that we're going to have to listen to them and find out what they want.
And I also think voting is very, very, very important and it's sadly something that it seems like we have to get angry to do it in big numbers and people just need to vote.
And if people did vote, if everyone voted, the will of the people, I really, I strongly believe that we would get a lot more of what we actually want instead of what others want.
You know, I believe that so many people are craving meaning.
The reason why this year and your show is this past year and this your show resonated so deeply is because people feel the real.
And I've always known that what people are craving is meaning and authenticity and they, people rise when they see character because it reminds them of their own.
Because now I think it's also getting so much harder to discern between what's real and what's not.
And that's why your monologues have resonated even when you're saying things that sound like they're funny, but there's like a double meaning behind them or it lands in a way that actually makes people think or think differently.
What do you think the world's craving right now?
Well, I think there's a lot of anxiety and I think we are, maybe we're not all, I don't know, but I feel, you know, I'm in a little bit of a bubble.
I work at a television show and my staff is 85 % liberal.
I mean, it's, you know, that's the truth of the matter.
And I live in Los Angeles, which is a very liberal city.
And so I don't hear a lot of variety when it comes to opinion.
But I think we need a leader is probably what we need.
I think we need somebody, we need you out for it's really what we need.
We need somebody that we we trust and that we can really get behind.
And who we know has our best interests in mind.
And I think we had that for the last eight years.
And I think it's really scary now that we don't I just it's I mean, and you know, gun control and healthcare, these are important things.
And there are so many other things that are going in the wrong direction, climate change, which, you know, is probably the biggest thing of all of them.
And just nobody will get it until New York is buried.
New York and Florida are underwater.
And people will still be saying it has nothing to do with the climate change.
I'm telling you that to those people, I would say, okay, maybe you're right.
But on the off chance, you're not.
And 99 % of the scientists are right.
Just to be safe. Why don't we do a few things to make sure that doesn't happen.
And the idea that somehow this money gets passed down to the people, I think is also preposterous.
It's you know, is just just kind of clearing the way for no different than chopping all the trees down in the Amazon.
I mean, it's this is not helping the populace, this is helping a handful of people.
And boy, I hope they're held accountable at the very least, when this goes south, because it does seem to be going south.
Well, this is what I know for sure.
Everybody will be held accountable.
We'll all be held accountable.
You know, you're being called the new conscious.
I love that word conscience of late night TV.
GQ said that I love the way they described you as sensible and decent.
Because I really, I think that of you too.
You're sensible, Jimmy.
And you're decent. That's very nice.
And I appreciate that.
You're like the most sane rational voice in an increasingly insane and irrational America.
And this is my question to you, all of that complementary flattering and people talk about you being so courageous standing up and speaking for what you believe in.
Was it courage? Did you find the courage?
Where did you find the courage to stand up for what you believe in?
Or did it just come from a space of I need to say this?
I wish I could say it was courage.
It absolutely wasn't courage.
I did not feel like I had any choice.
It was what was going to come out of my mouth.
Okay. And interesting.
It was not absolutely not courage.
I mean, you know, I see courage.
Those guys fighting those fires here in California.
That to me is courage.
There's no real downside to me talking about this stuff.
Oh yeah. You lose 30 % of your Republican audience.
That's a downside. You know, television.
Okay. So maybe I make a million dollars less, you know, that year.
You know, these are not real penalties, but I think that I am sensible.
And I think what I was saying makes sense.
And I hope that it makes sense to everyone.
And I do think that even the people who, you know, labeled Republican and disagree with me, that it resonated with them and it made sense to them too.
And I think it did.
I do think in the case of health care that it did.
And I do think that there were a lot of Republican politicians who were surprised by how much pushback they got from their own supporters.
What does it mean to you to have conviction?
Well, I have a lot of conviction in general, and I don't know why.
I think it's something that I've had since I was a kid.
And when I say conviction, I don't necessarily, I mean, it's not necessarily all about important things.
Like, if I see someone put ketchup on a hot dog, I just, and I'm sorry, Oprah, I know Chicago, that that's very common, but I have great conviction that that is unacceptable.
It's wrong. It shouldn't happen.
So I have a lot of conviction about a lot of stupid things, but occasionally something that matters pops in there too.
I read that your executive producer never worries about waking up to see your name in the headlines for some awful reason.
I believe leading a life on values and character leads to your best life, actually.
And were you born this way or was there a person who modeled that for you?
Oh, my parents, for sure.
I mean, I'm sure there's a certain amount of, you know, some people are born inclined towards something or other, but definitely my parents are.
My parents are the people who will stay and help you clean up, who will, I mean, I think that's the really the best way I can illustrate who my parents are is they're the people that will fold up all the chairs at the end of the event and will be at the sink washing dishes.
Wow. Yeah. And I think that that it makes an impact.
It's something that you see and whether you realize it consciously or not, it becomes a part of you.
And I think seeing that over and over every day, you know, my parents would take people into our house, who needed help, and they were always there for others.
And when the other people helped us, for instance, my father lost his job and he was out of work for a year when I was in high school, and there were some people who helped us never forgot that and never took it for granted.
And we're always very grateful and did everything they could to spend really the rest of their lives thanking those people.
And I think all that stuff is important.
Gratitude is very important and I think it's all because of the way I was raised.
So as I said to you earlier this month, we're talking about what you're willing to stand for.
You've already done that with such grace and power.
On which truths would you stake your own life?
Big question. On which truth would I stake my own life?
Yeah. I mean, besides the catch -em -on -hot -dogs thing.
Yes. Because you go down with that one.
I believe. Maybe it's trite, but I think the golden rule is the one I would stake my life on, do one, two others.
Yeah. And I think that's, if we all did our best to follow that one, yeah, we have no problems at all.
Yeah, I would say that's my religion, actually.
It's actually also the third law in physics.
It's the same thing.
It's not just do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The truth is once you do it, it's already done unto you.
So whatever you do is going to be done.
That's what I know.
Hold on. I'm writing this down so I can make a quilt out of it.
It's true. That I know for sure.
So what are the values that you and Molly that are most important for you to instill in your children?
Have you had that conversation or do you just generally know?
My wife is the greatest.
I mean, she is really one of the things that attracted me to her is she spent time in Africa working with children and people there to help improve their lives.
There's a group called Ubuntu that she and I are involved with.
It's U -B -U -N -T -U and they do great things.
I know. I found it in the principles of my school on Ubuntu.
Thank you very much.
Oh yes. Well, it's not just a word.
It's an organization that's based out of Austin and I think that for me, I sometimes think about it means because I am because you are I am because you are.
Oh, is that what that means?
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Well, I want to make sure that of course I'll take my family on vacation, but I want to make sure that we also have activities during our off time that are specifically to help people because I think that especially with children, it makes such an impact and it shapes your your personality and your
way of living so much.
I mean, these kids are sponges right now and I do think that I have the luxury of being able to make a concerted effort to do that with my kids.
Of course, besides all the little things, but I do think that that's a very important thing to do.
I know a daily talk show takes every bit of your focus and energy to thrive.
How do you find peace for yourself?
How do you come down?
How do you relax? How do you I do I work a lot and I try to you know I have a couple hours in the morning with the kids and then maybe an hour and a half with them at night before they go to sleep and when I'm really at my wit's end because I just get email after email after email and script after script
after script and question after question.
If I can't go fishing I love fly fishing.
I will just look at pictures of it.
Really? I go online and I'll look at pictures of rivers and of houses where people live who go fishing a lot.
It just makes me feel better and cooking too.
I like to cook. I thought you would say I go to my pizza oven and I make a pizza because I will say this and I told everybody that is still the best pizza I have ever had outside of Italy in my entire life.
I can still taste that pizza.
Well there are definitely better pizzas than mine but I can't imagine a better compliment and I do love I do know that there is something that when you're feeding the people you love there is something that happens that it's just it's good for your soul and some people have it in them and some people
don't but I definitely do.
I love I make almost every meal in our house.
I make pancakes for my daughter almost every morning and and my wife is even slightest bit peckish.
I leap up and I whip something up at night.
Wow what's been the most difficult choice you've had to make to fulfill your destiny do you think?
Just career wise I've been at major crossroads on a number of occasions and one of them was I was working at a radio station here in Los Angeles, K -Rock and I was making a decent amount of money.
I was doing okay not great and I was offered a lot of money by another radio station to compete against the guys I worked with and I went to my radio station the boss and I said hey listen I'm being offered all this money to go against you guys and he didn't care you know he was just like well we can't
pay you that much money and I thought about it and I decided that even though it was a life -changing amount of money for me that I would not do it and I just wouldn't feel right about it competing against people I liked and who were my friends and who were my teammates and I just decided to stay there
and then it wasn't three months later that I got a tv show and it was I would have wound up having quit that job anyway and you know it almost feels like things were related.
Or maybe not have been seen in the same way for the tv show.
Or maybe not have even been seen in the same way for the tv show.
Yeah you're right you're right perhaps I would have flopped and they wouldn't have been interested but people throw the word loyalty around a lot and a lot of people think like continuing to work for you for a long time is loyalty and but to me loyalty is when you turn money down to stay with someone
else that's real loyalty.
Yeah how much money was it can you tell me I have a similar story.
I will tell you exactly how much it was.
I was making 75 ,000 a year at k -rock and they offered me 200 ,000 a year at the other day.
Just to start that was and it was a multi -year contract and it went up each time and the money was guaranteed and I was just like I just can't do it and part of the reason I wasn't able to do it is my program director a guy named Kevin Weatherly one time we had really good ratings and everybody got
a ratings bonus except for me and he brought me into his office and he said I feel really badly that the company doesn't give you a ratings bonus and he wrote me a check for 500 out of his personal account and I never forgot it and I knew and so you know he wasn't he's not a rich guy either and I know
that that was a meaningful gesture you know and it paid off it really did.
That's an incredible story I had a similar one for me it was I was making 10 ,000 at the CBS affiliate local CBS affiliate in Nashville and I got an offer to go to Atlanta to WSB -TV for $40 ,000 which at the time I was like that's it I am home free for life and my boss has said you're not ready to go
to Atlanta you think you're ready to go to Atlanta you need to stay here you need to learn the business you need to learn how to be a good writer you're not a strong writer you still can't keep your eyelashes on straight they're falling off all the time and we can't pay you $40 ,000 but we can't pay
you 12 so I stayed for 12.
That's why you're smart and that's why you're Oprah.
Oh gosh but no and really it was a matter of gee I thought that was going to be the big time but maybe I need to you know be groomed some more for and then that was really the best decision.
Not too many people get that I mean that's uh that's a tough thing to thank goodness your news director whoever that was yeah it has the sense to give you the story like that and you had the sense to to take as it yeah I remember he said you don't know as much as you think you know and I've now used
that over and over and over with my girls from South Africa I've used that story but I think about that at least once a week how much I thought I knew and I try to remember that I also will look back at this time and realize that I didn't know what I thought I knew exactly so that brings me to this question what is the lesson that took
you the longest to learn diplomacy it took me a very long time I was fired from a lot of radio stations like all of them except for one and I bounced around the country each time lasting for 10 months 11 months you know occasionally I got to the one year mark and I couldn't understand I was funny you
know and I don't want to sound arrogant but I know that I was funnier than the other guys at the radio station and funnier than my competition and I felt like I had the uh in most cases the ratings to back that and also the tapes you know just you make a tape and they're like this is you know listen
other people's tastes like oh this well this is much better I don't understand why I'm not getting great jobs and why I'm not these people aren't embracing me and cherishing the fact that I have agreed to work at the radio station and the truth is sometimes I'm unaware people when I make jokes I can be
a little bit tone deaf and I would you know if I had a program director and I did a particular program director in Seattle he would call us into his office to yell at us after the show and I would sneak a paper quarter into the room and then I would tape it and then I would play it on the air the next
day and he would get crazier and crazier to the point we're almost being pissed before we came to his it is office and I would do it over and over again and I would constantly share private conversations on the air and in my mind this is great radio you should be for this you this is the kind of thing
the listeners want to hear why wouldn't you be anything other than for this but in his mind he's like you're making me look like an idiot I've got a wife and I got friends and I'm not going to take this anymore and so it took me a very long time and actually I don't even know if I realized weren't you
afraid of being fired weren't you afraid of being fired continuing to tape him it never occurred to me that anyone would think this was anything other than hilarious and then each time I started getting fired and I was surprised I was shocked and then I started to recognize the signs of when you're
gonna get fired and the biggest sign is they stop yelling at you and that seemed odd I was like I don't know what's going on here but I'm not getting yelled at anymore and that's great but maybe not good so I did learn because a friend hired me at k -rock in LA you know I just wasn't inclined to torment
him because we'd known each other since college and I think that's what made me realize like oh that's what I that's what I did wrong I I treated I treated my bosses like they were material yeah yeah so you've learned that lesson I learned that repeatedly repeatedly okay earlier you were saying you
didn't know necessarily if there is a you know reason for everything I think about everything in terms of you know what is the deeper meaning and what does this mean and what is this you're trying to show me do you think that there is a purpose to celebrity what is the purpose of celebrity and and the power
that it brings well I think when you boil it down it's all about familiarity and it's all about a for the most part false feeling that you have a relationship with someone and I think you have to be aware of that when you meet people they feel like they know you and to a certain extent they do know
you but they don't really know you and I go out of my way not to disappoint them I don't want them to feel like strangers because they don't think of me as a stranger correct and so I just I try to keep that in mind I had an experience once with a baseball player that I loved it was perfectly nice to
me but just didn't embrace me quite in the way that I I was I I'd fantasized about and so I try to keep that in mind and I try to connect with people at least a little bit when I meet them when I do feel like you know it's one thing to take a picture with somebody but when you can tell somebody really
knows you and knows the show and knows you know what you've done I will take a little bit of extra time with them and I guess it's to maybe this is overly simple but maybe it's to bring a little bit of of happiness into people's daily lives and then to use your power if you want to call it that to support
people and organizations who need that support and who deserve it and spread it around you know I grew up in Las Vegas and people there live on tips and that's how you live so you learn when you live there because your parents your friend's parents and everybody around you how important that is and I
do think that I've been very very lucky financially and otherwise and that it's important to spread that around that's something my uncle Frank taught me and he never had really any money he was a cop in New York but he was always tipped and and he always say spread it around spread it around oh yeah
that was one of the biggest early arguments I had with Stedman when we first started dating a thousand years ago I'd said to him oh did you you tip that guy and he said I forgot I'm like oh we have to go back who forgets to tip I am such a you know listen me too I have a part of it is you're accountable
because they know you when you're a stranger of course it's a different thing but I am on a number of occasions doubled back to sneak more money under the check when other people have paid absolutely I do the same thing no and the most fun thing I did over the I was in a hotel in New York and I started
tipping I always leave something for the for the housekeepers you know because everybody always forgets the housekeeping which I think you have to leave the money on the bed that's something important that I learned because it won't take it if you put it other where that's right I put it on the pillow
and then get this I got so excited about putting it on the pillow that I decided I was going to put it in different rooms in so I put it in a roll of toilet paper I put it on the desk I put it in the drawer where they come in to change the change the M &Ms I had some there I was so excited like every
time they open another thing they're gonna like what so did that Hanukkah exactly exactly final question what is your prayer for your son and all of your children and our country my prayer for my son and for for your son to our country is it's probably the same I pray that above anything else successful
smart all of those things we want our children to be that he is a good person and that this country does the will of good people and I'm probably overly focused right now on what's happening politically and I can't help it and I'm a little bit obsessed with it but I just want I just want to know that even
if they make mistakes even if they don't do the right thing that the people running the country are good and I hope my son is one of the citizens who in whatever way he can helps to make that happen wow really love that you gave me this much time thank you so much I can't wait to come on your show another
three hours thank you take care all right bye thank you I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations the podcast you can follow Super Soul on Instagram Twitter and Facebook if you haven't yet go to Apple podcasts and subscribe rate and review this podcast join me next week
for another Super Soul Conversation thank you for listening
