The Oprah Winfrey Show ends after 25 seasons with a final episode that had no guests, just Oprah Winfrey thanking the people who watched. The Associated Press reported that the finale was taped Tuesday in Chicago with Winfrey alone on stage next to a single chair that she mostly stood beside, and it aired Wednesday, May 25.
According to CBS News, she opened with a clip from her very first show, played favorite moments and talked through what she had learned. She called it her last class and the show the world’s biggest classroom, and she urged viewers to help others, listen and forgive. She said she was leaving without any bitterness, then closed with “I’ll just say until we meet again.”
Afterward she hugged her longtime partner Stedman Graham, hugged and high fived the staff, and celebrated with the crew. CBS reported that the show ends with Winfrey walking away with her cocker spaniel, Sadie. The AP said the studio audience included Tyler Perry, Maria Shriver, Suze Orman and Cicely Tyson, though none of them joined her on stage.
The real party came a week earlier. About 13,000 fans and guests filled Chicago’s United Center for a double episode farewell that aired Monday and Tuesday, with Aretha Franklin, Tom Cruise, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jordan and Madonna on hand, according to the AP. Winfrey announced in November 2009 that she would end the show.
Baller Alert has long called her the Ultimate Baller, and the climb started in 1983 when she moved to Chicago to host the low rated morning show AM Chicago on WLS TV. Within months it overtook Donahue as the top talk show in the city. She earned an Academy Award nomination in 1985 for The Color Purple, founded Harpo Productions in 1986, launched O, The Oprah Magazine in 2000 and opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa in 2004. She is not going anywhere either, since she can still be found on OWN, her own cable network.
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