Saturday, November 16, 2024 - Oprah Winfrey has finally explained the $1 million fee paid to her production company for a town hall event to support Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
Before the election, Winfrey's Harpo Productions helped
stage a star-studded town hall event for the vice president in Michigan as the
billionaire entertainment mogul endorsed Harris to be the next president of the
United States.
The Harris campaign footed the bill for organizing the town
hall and made a $1 million payment to Winfrey's production company, Harpo
Productions.
When first publicly confronted by TMZ with the
news on Monday, Winfrey give a denial.
'Not true' she said, when a cameraman asked her about the
payment. 'I was paid nothing. Ever.'
However, Winfrey has clarified her remarks in
an Instagram post on The Shade Room show account.
'Usually, I am reluctant to respond to rumors in general,
but these days I realize that if you don’t stop a lie, it just gets bigger,'
she wrote.
Winfrey said her production team billed the $1 million fee
to the Harris campaign to host the Michigan event on her behalf.
'[M]y production company Harpo was asked to bring in set
design, lights, cameras, microphones, crew, producers, and every other item
necessary (including the benches and chairs we sat on) to put on a live
production,' she wrote.
'Winfrey clarified that she personally did not get 'one
dime' from the campaign.
'I did not take any personal fee,' she said. 'However the
people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of
story.'
The event featured virtual appearances by A-listers
including Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, and Bryan
Cranston.
The Chicago Tribune blasted the billionaire
former talk show host over her decision to allow her company to accept the
payment, suggesting Winfrey should have paid her workers' fees herself.
'Frankly, $1 million is not all that much to Winfrey and so
we very much doubt that she was seeking any kind of personal payday from her
chosen candidate,' the editorial board wrote in a column.
'But she does own Harpo and serves as its chairwoman and
CEO. The production fees should have been a campaign donation.'
Joe Biden and Harris' teams have since blamed each
other for wasting over $1 billion in donor cash on a disastrous
presidential campaign.
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