Getty Images/Gallo Images(LONDON) — Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has been very open in the past on why she didn’t have any children, and in a new interview with Good Housekeeping UK, she explains that the young women she mentors are like her kids.
Oprah currently mentors 172 girls at the school she supports. She says they use “my home as their home base” and that, she says, is more than enough for the icon.
“It is more rewarding than I would ever have imagined. I was doing this to help them, but it has brought a light to my life that I can’t explain,” she said of the Leadership Academy she champions.
“For me it was perfect, because I didn’t want babies,” she added. “I wouldn’t have been a good mom for babies. I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage! But this is so rewarding.”
She continued, “When people were pressuring me to get married and have children, I knew I was not going to be a person that ever regretted not having them, because I feel like I am a mother to the world’s children. Love knows no boundaries.”
She expressed a similar sentiment to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, saying “If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
In the new interview, Winfrey, who earlier this year revealed she lost 42 pounds on Weight Watchers, also spoke about her lifelong battle with weight and food.
“[My weight] has been the go-to comfort for me. You use it as your coat and your shield, and it keeps you from doing things…But the wonderful thing for me is that I reached a point where I no longer wanted to hide,” she said.
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