Oprah Winfrey is many issues: a media icon, a billionaire and a cultural power. However primarily based on one story she shared this week, she’s additionally the good friend you didn’t notice may completely drink you beneath the desk.
Throughout an look at New York’s 92nd Road Y on Tuesday (Jan. 12), Winfrey shocked the group when she admitted she as soon as gained a Santa Barbara ingesting contest after downing 17 pictures. The confession landed like a punchline, sparking laughter and cheers, in accordance with The Hollywood Reporter, till Gayle King, who was sitting beside her just like the accountable greatest good friend she is, shortly shut it down.
“Don’t applaud that,” King joked. “That’s horrible.”
The hilarious throwback surfaced throughout a principally instructional dialog about well being, weight, and “meals noise,” as King moderated a dialogue that includes Winfrey and Dr. Ania M. Jastreboff about their new e-book, “Sufficient: Your Well being, Your Weight and What It’s Prefer to Be Free”.
Early within the discuss, King famous that 2026 will mark a serious milestone; almost 50 years of friendship, courting again to after they first met in Baltimore in 1976. “We have been 21 and 22, now we’re 71 and 71,” King cracked, including that Winfrey—whose birthday is Jan. 29—will flip 72 quickly.
Their bestie bond confirmed up in the way in which solely actual greatest pals can pull off: heat teasing, fast honesty, and the consolation of understanding you’ll be able to inform the reality in public as a result of the individual subsequent to you isn’t going to allow you to rewrite historical past.
That’s how the ingesting story got here up. King recalled being at a Golden Globes celebration final weekend and ordering a Shirley Temple, just for somebody close by to react with a blunt “Critically?” King mentioned she didn’t flinch; she doubled down: “Critically with additional cherries.”
The second was humorous, however it additionally opened the door to Winfrey’s personal shift. Whereas she mentioned she doesn’t drink anymore, she acknowledged she “was once a tequila lady,” earlier than pointing again to Santa Barbara’s Fiesta pageant, the place, at the least one night time, she was decided to win.
And he or she did.
Winfrey’s 17-shot confession might have been the second that bought the most important gasp, however the message beneath it was unmistakable: this chapter isn’t about proving something. It’s about understanding the physique, letting go of disgrace, and selecting freedom over the battle.
