Oprah Winfrey Reveals She Gets Hit Up For Money All The Time


Oprah Winfrey is known as one of the most powerful women of the 21st century. Besides being a media mogul and owning her own network, Oprah has also given to various charitable causes. In addition to giving back to the community for years Oprah’s talk show would give away a host of expensive gifts to people in her Harpo audience. Because Oprah Winfrey is giving with her money this also lead to people asking to borrow a few bucks from Oprah.

Of course as Oprah gained in popularity and as her empire grew, those “few bucks” have reportedly turned into thousands and thousands of dollars. According to Winfrey she’s often asked for money from a surprising amount of people. On Sunday TMZ asked Oprah to give a ballpark number of how much people ask for, and Winfrey didn’t bat an eye when she told the photographer how much money people are looking to squeeze out of her.

Oprah took a second out of her schedule to honestly give her opinion about just how much money she’s asked to give as a hand out.

“This is what I find, people ask for money depending on what they think you have.So when I was making $22,000 a year, people always need $50. Then when I moved to like $50,000, everybody also needed $500. Now nobody needs anything less than $50,000.”

It isn’t as if Winfrey is tight with her money. Throughout the years Oprah has spent well over $100 million of her own money on the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. According to the official site, the students who are invited into the program are encouraged and taught how to excel beyond their current challenging circumstances. The Academy acts as a school that nurtures potential and raises “the next generation of transformative South African leaders.”

“It is a place where young girls will have the opportunity to improve the quality of life for their sisters, and for generations to come.”

As far as handing out loans to people, her most famous loan is currently the one she’s lending to troubled actress Lindsay Lohan. In exchange for making a docu-series for her OWN network, Oprah is footing the bill for Lindsay Lohan’s $16,800-a-month Soho apartment in New York City as she shoots the docu-series in hopes to live a sober life.

In addition Oprah’s OWN also paid Lindsay Lohan $2 million to film the docudrama.

Are you surprised that people ask Oprah Winfrey for handouts?

[Image Credit: Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com]

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