Oprah Winfrey held back tears as she confirmed that her show will end in 2011. The host told her studio audience on Friday (November 20th) that “prayer and careful thought” led her to her decision to finish the show after a quarter of a century.
Oprah said she loved The Oprah Winfrey Show, that it had been her life and that she knew when it was time to say goodbye: “25 years feels right in my bones and feels right in my spirit.”
Oprah talked about being nervous when the program began in 1986, and thanked audiences who had invited her into their homes over the past two decades.
“I certainly never could have imagined the yellow brick road of blessings that would have led me to this moment,” she said.
She said she and her staff were going to brainstorm ideas for the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show and that she hoped viewers would take “this 18-month ride with me”.
In Season 25, “we are going to knock your socks off,” she said. “The countdown to the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show starts now.”
In January 2008, Winfrey announced that she and Discovery Networks planned to partner on a new cable network: OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, which is slated to launch the same year she ends her record and groundbreaking talk show.
