Why Oprah Winfrey Quit Her ’60 Minutes’ Contributor Gig
Oprah Winfrey has taken one job off her busy schedule.
She has left her position as a special contributor with 60 Minutes because it wasn’t “the best format,” she revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday.
“I’ve removed myself from that,” she said. “Never a good thing when I have to practice saying my name and have to be told that I have too much emotion in my name.”
Winfrey recalled doing multiple takes just for her name “because it was ‘too emotional,'” something she had been told previously in her career as a journalist. At the time, she’d been reporting on a family losing their home. She understood that as a reporter, she wasn’t “supposed to be involved in the story.”
(Michael Short/Getty Images)
In her position with 60 Minutes, she was told to “flatten out [her] voice,” she said to THR. “I was working on pulling myself down and flattening out my personality — which, for me, is actually not such a good thing.”
She had originally been planning to take a step back from the CBS newsmagazine while working with Apple on her upcoming scripted shows. That work didn’t mean she “would never do something [with 60 Minutes],” but she planned on “taking all of [her] energies and putting them into” her work at Apple, she said.
Winfrey joined the news program in 2017. “There is only one Oprah Winfrey,” Fager said in a statement at the time. “She is a remarkable and talented woman with a level of integrity that sets her apart and makes her a perfect fit for 60 Minutes. I am thrilled that she will be bringing her unique and powerful voice to our broadcast.”
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