Oprah Winfrey is one of the most successful talk show hosts in the history of television. Her talk show, which ran from 1986- to 2011, was so powerful that she could create superstars from obscurity.
The Oprah Winfrey Show started as a celebrity chat/tabloid talk show but eventually, it morphed into a spiritually-based program with subjects as varied as how to empower your soul and what our dead relatives have to teach us.
Oprah is a perpetual seeker of wisdom and is unapologetically a hedonist who enjoys her wealth. She went from absolute poverty, born to a single mother to being an Oscar-nominated actress and one of the richest people in the media world.
In the search for Namaste—she has had her share of self-help hucksters on her program. Most have been forgotten—but there are a few that have been proven to be total, unrepentant Creeps
Today we will discuss four such Creeps who at one time were anointed by the Big O.
Sources:
Trigger warnings: Pseudoscience, woo, death by suicide, claustrophobia, and total bullshit
Sources for the segments include:
Dr. Phil McGraw
- The Daily Beast
- Mercury News
- Buzzfeed
- Slate
- Boston Globe
- Kansas City Star
- Psychology Today
- Wikipedia
Dr. Mehmet Oz
- Wikipedia
- USA Today
- New Yorker
- CNN Money “Dr. Oz Looks at Donald Trump’s Medical Summary”
- Washington Post
Jenny McCarthy
- Daily Beast
- Daily Beast – “They Don’t Want an Autism Cure”
- Time magazine
- Jezebel
- Oprah.com
- Frontline
- World Health Organization
- Vox
- Autistic Mama
- Autistic Self-Advocacy Network
- Wikipedia
James Arthur Ray (“The Secret”)
- Wikipedia
- The Self-Styled Life
- ABC News
- CNN
- The Guardian
- People
- Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray
- “Guru: The Dark Side of Enlightenment” by Matt Stroud (for Wondery)
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