Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are the latest celebrities to sit down with Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview.
For the first time since they stepped away from their duties as senior royals in March 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will participate in the high-profile televised event that’s being produced by CBS.
During the interview, which will air on 7 March, Markle will individually speak about “life as a royal, marriage, motherhood” as well as her “handling [of] life under intense public pressure”. The couple will then discuss their decision to move to America and what they have planned for the future.
Throughout her career, Winfrey has interviewed some of the world’s biggest celebrities, unveiling secrets and producing some of TV’s most jaw-dropping moments.
Here are five of Winfrey’s most shocking interviews from over the years...
Read more: Harry and Meghan Oprah Winfrey interview: When is it and how can I watch?
In 2005, Tom Cruise appeared on Oprah to discuss his role in Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming film War of the Worlds. But rather than purely promoting the film, an excitable Cruise clutched Winfrey’s hand, stood up and cheered and even jumped on the sofa as he gushed about his new relationship with Katie Holmes. “What has happened to you?” an incredulous Winfrey asked.
Aged 21 and having just won the Masters, a fresh-faced Tiger Woods was interviewed by Winfrey in 1997. During the talk, Woods said that he defined his race as “cablinasian”, a mixture of caucasian, black, Indian (native American) and asian. “That’s why you’re America’s son,” Winfrey replied. To be referred to as only African-American, Woods said, bothered him.
One of Winfrey’s most shocking interviews came in 2009, when the presenter sat down with music icon Whitney Houston. The pair discussed Houston’s 14-year marriage to Bobby Brown, with the singer opening up about the infidelity, emotional and physical abuse she allegedly suffered at his hands. When Winfrey asked if Houston was now drug-free, she responded: “Yes, ma’am… don’t think I don’t have desires for it.”
Lance Armstrong was another sports star to be given the Winfrey treatment, but this interview made headlines for very different reasons. After years of denial, the cyclist finally admitted in 2013 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs to win all seven of his Tour de France titles. Doping was so prevalent in the sport at the time, he said, that winning without taking them would have been impossible.
Years before Meghan Markle was criticised for her honest depiction of royal life, Prince Andrew’s former wife Sarah Ferguson voiced similar opinions while speaking to Winfrey in 1996. Calling the British media “cruel” and “invasive”, she added: “That is the fairytale but then comes the realism that you don’t marry to get the fairytale… it’s not a fairytale, it’s real life.”
