Media icon Oprah Winfrey told journalist Hoda Kotb that she only has three close friends, Gayle King, Bob Greene and Maria Shriver. Winfrey commented while appearing with Shriver on Kotb’s podcast Making Space on Oct. 4.
Shriver and Winfrey discussed their 42-year friendship with Kotb, which nearly brought the host to tears several times throughout the interview. Winfrey surprised some fans by announcing that she only has three close friends, King, Greene and Shriver.
“So, I don’t have a lot of friends,” said Winfrey. “Everybody knows Gayle. There’s Gayle, there’s Maria, there’s Bob. And that’s — that’s about it, you know? Gayle and Maria I met around the same time, and I never really expanded that circle. Until recently, I’ve become friends with a couple of people in my later adult life, in the past five years.”
Winfrey and Shriver met at WJZ-TV in Baltimore while both women were beginning their careers as journalists and have remained close ever since. Shriver was there for Winfrey when she left her award-winning television show after 25 years to start her network, OWN.
“Every newspaper, everybody was saying, ‘You shoulda kept your day job. The struggling OWN. What’d you leave The Oprah Show for? It’s a disaster.’ Just one story, after another story, after another story,” Winfrey said.
“Oh my god, Maria’s gonna tell you the truth no matter damn what,” she continued. “Maria give it to you in your face and then say, ‘And you know what I’m talking about! You already know what I’m saying is true.’”
When Shriver discovered Winfrey loved a song by Snatam Kaur called “By Thy Grace,” Shriver tracked her down surprised Winfrey on her birthday. When the music began, Winfrey thought it was the stereo until she turned around and saw Kaur walking towards her.
“She’s walking down the stairs of the porch. And it was the most out of body, surreal — I think tears literally shot out of my eyes,” Winfrey said.
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And Winfrey was also there for Shriver when she ended her 25-year-long marriage to movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger. The marriage ended after Schwarzenegger infamously impregnated the couple’s housekeeper, Mildred Baena, and lied about it for years.
Adding insult to injury, before the affair was revealed, the family often joked about how much Baena’s son, Joseph, looked like Schwarzenegger. Joseph is also the same age as Shriver’s youngest son with Schwarzenegger, Christopher.
Shriver noted that Winfrey nurtures her friends in a motherly way, which she finds comforting. When Shriver’s mother died, Winfrey rounded up Shriver’s friends, and each one chose a word to be engraved on a crystal stone for her. Winfrey’s word for Shriver was “cherished.”
Winfrey said that the two met in the bathroom at the radio station in Baltimore, and Winfrey described the moment they met as fate, saying her friendship with Shriver carried her through her career.
“I forever think that that was, like, a divine moment that happened because she was one of my true, grounded friendships that carried me through my entire career,” said Winfrey said.
Now in their 60s, the women are closer than ever.
