No matter how hard you’ve been hoping and praying for an Oprah Winfrey presidential run, the media mongul said in the March issue of InStyle published Thursday that she has no interest in running.
Calls to run were fueled by a speech she made at the Golden Globes, where men and women alike participated in a red carpet blackout in honor of the TIME’S UP movement.
Winfrey’s speech came towards the end of the night when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. “I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon,” Winfrey said with vigor. “And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women … and some pretty phenomenal men fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders that take us to the time when nobody has to say ‘me too’ again.”
I mean, it’s been fun to joke about Oprah running for president, but that speech really was presidential. That was phenomenal, even by her standards.#GoldenGlobes #TimesUp
— Charlotte Clymer?️? (@cmclymer) January 8, 2018
WHO DID THIS pic.twitter.com/9KxjsiHYts
— Tyler Dinucci (@TylerDinucci) January 8, 2018
Even before the speech, host Seth Meyers joked about Winfrey’s presidency during his introduction. “Oprah while I have you, in 2011 I told some jokes about our current president at the White House Correspondents Dinner — jokes about how he was unqualified to be president, and some say that night convinced him to run,” Meyers said. “And if that’s true I want to say, Oprah, you will never be president! You do not have what it takes to be president.”
Winfrey’s partner, Stedman Graham, said to the Los Angeles Times shortly after the Golden Globes that she would “absolutely” run for president.
But when asked by InStyle how she feels when she hears people say the ever-popular phrase, “Oprah 2020,” Winfrey responded, “I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not. And so it’s not something that interests me. I don’t have the DNA for it.”
Oprah 2020? “I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not. And so it’s not something that interests me. I don’t have the DNA for it,” March cover star @Oprah tells @LauraBrown99. https://t.co/iszoxFeChp pic.twitter.com/FkrWJt9lQn
— InStyle (@InStyle) January 25, 2018
She also told InStyle, “I actually saw a mug the other day … I thought it was a cute mug. All you need is a mug and some campaign literature and a T-shirt.” (Someone, anyone, get the T-shirts ready.)
Winfrey continued on to reveal that she met with one individual “the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign,” but added, “That’s not for me.”
Winfrey first rose to fame as the host of a television talk show, using it to build a media empire that spans magazine publishing, movie and television production, cable TV and satellite radio. Born into poverty, she is now one of the world’s wealthiest women, reports Forbes. She has long been associated with Democratic Party politics and fundraising and has raised millions of dollars for various causes.
The White House said they’d welcome anyone who wanted to challenge Trump in 2020, Winfrey included: “Regardless of who is on the ballot…they are going to have to face a president who has record-setting achievements in record-setting time. We welcome the challenge whether it be Oprah Winfrey or anybody else. We welcome all comers.”
In response to talk of Winfrey’s hypothetical 2020 presidential run, Trump announced that he’ll beat her if it came to that. “Yeah I’ll beat Oprah,” the president said during a White House meeting. “Oprah would be a lot of fun. I know her very well. … I like Oprah. I don’t think she’s going to run.”
Well, looks like Trump is right — she doesn’t have her heart set on running. But that won’t stop people from dreaming about an Oprah Oval Office.
Reuters contributed to this report.
