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Following her inspirational Golden Globes speech this month, rumours have been rife that Oprah Winfrey could run for US president in 2020.
But the media mogul has dashed the hopes of everyone that made #Oprah2020 trend on Twitter, saying in a new interview that she has no plans to run.
“I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not,” she told US InStyle.
“And so it’s not something that interests me,” she says. “I don’t have the DNA for it.”
The news is crushing for the millions who hoped Winfrey could become America’s first female president – and the first woman of colour to run for POTUS.
After the Golden Globes her partner Stedman Graham was asked if Oprah would ever consider running for office.
“It’s up to the people,” Graham frankly told the Los Angeles Times.
“She would absolutely do it.”
Meryl Streep, a long-time acquaintance of Winfrey’s, backed the idea.
“She launched a rocket tonight,” Streep told the Washington Post.
“I want her to run for president. I don’t think she had any intention [of declaring]. But now she doesn’t have a choice.”
In the interview, Winfrey also took a thinly veiled jab at President Trump – namely his penchant for spontaneous and often inflammatory tweets.
“I try not to lean into the hysteria,” she said.
“I’ve heard a lot of Twitter chatter where people have said, ‘Where are you? You should be speaking up on these things!’ But it makes no sense to speak when you cannot be heard.
“One hundred and forty characters—that is not how you want to make your mark in the world.”
Amen.
