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Oprah Winfrey is finally addressing the criticism she has faced over the years for helping launch the careers of Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Both men became familiar faces on The Oprah Winfrey Show before eventually landing their own daytime talk shows.
But their careers have taken some very different turns since then — particularly when it comes to politics.
During a recent interview with Emmy Magazine, Oprah was asked about the criticism surrounding her decision to give both men a national platform.
“People criticize me for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, because of their politics or their views,” Winfrey acknowledged.
But Oprah isn’t exactly taking responsibility for the paths her former proteges chose to follow.
“Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don’t have one thing to do with them,” she said.
Winfrey explained that her original decision to feature the two men had nothing to do with politics.
Instead, she genuinely believed they had something valuable to offer her viewers.
“At the time, the reason and intention behind me giving them their breaks was I thought they had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me,” she explained.
In Dr. Phil’s case, Winfrey said the two became acquainted during her 1998 legal battle over comments she made about beef and mad cow disease.
McGraw supported her during the lengthy trial, and Oprah was impressed by his practical approach.
“He was so practical, so down to earth, so real,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh, you could help a lot of people. You should come on my show.’”
Dr. Oz entered the picture several years later after being introduced to Winfrey by her longtime friend Gayle King.
The television personality said she appreciated Oz’s ability to explain complicated medical subjects in terms that she could understand.
“He explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements,” Winfrey said. “I thought he had the language for explaining medical things in a way that was helpful to me.”
So she brought him onto her show, too.
And, as Oprah sees it, that’s where her responsibility ends.
Both men eventually became successful television personalities in their own right. They also became supporters of President Donald Trump, with Oz going on to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and McGraw serving on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.
For Oprah, however, the fact that their careers took a political turn years after she helped introduce them to America isn’t something she believes should be pinned on her.
In her mind, she gave them a platform because she believed they could help people.
What they did with that platform afterward was up to them.