Oprah Winfrey has identified a song recorded for her talk show's 13th season as her biggest career regret. The media mogul, who began her highly successful career in the 1980s, shared this sentiment during an appearance on Keke Palmer's podcast, "Baby, This Is Keke Palmer."
Winfrey explained that the song, an upbeat jingle based on an old spiritual, was created as she contemplated ending "The Oprah Winfrey Show." After what she described as a "talk with Jesus," she decided to continue the show, leading to the recording of the theme song and its accompanying music video. "It was bad. You know it was bad," Winfrey stated, recalling her inability to sing despite taking lessons. The show aired from 1986 to 2011.
During the same podcast appearance, Winfrey also revealed that her birth name is Orpah, a name derived from the Bible. She explained that the spelling was altered on her birth certificate because people did not know how to spell the original name. "It’s not what made me. I was a kid. Nobody knew how to spell it," she said, noting that she learned about the discrepancy around age 20. The name Orpah appears in the Bible's Book of Ruth.
Winfrey pointed out that Palmer also uses a name different from the one on her birth certificate, which is Lauren Keyana Palmer.