Oprah Winfrey talks about her nervous breakdown
By Busolami Idowu
Billionaire,Television personality, actress and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey has confirmed that she suffered from a nervous breakdown last year while she was starring in the civil rights movie ‘The Butler’ and was also trying to improve the profile of her TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), which launched in 2011.
59-year old Winfrey said she kept thinking as she filmed an interview with Jason Russell, the director of the controversial campaigning video Kony 2012, who suffered a very public breakdown in March 2012,“I was sitting and listening to Jason Russell describe his symptoms… Saying, ‘Um, this sounds pretty familiar to me.’ ”
Winfrey’s own symptoms began with “just sort of speeding and a kind of numbness and going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. I will tell you when I realised that if I don’t calm down I’m gonna be in serious trouble. I was in the middle of doing voiceovers, you know? And I remember closing my eyes in between each page because looking at the page and the words at the same time was too much stimulation for my brain.” Winfrey went on.“I mean, I wasn’t ready to go run naked in the streets. Let’s make that clear But I had reached a point where I just couldn’t take in any more stimulation. OK? That’s what I meant by that.”
Oprah recently dropped to the number three position on the Forbes’ highest earning TV personality after an estimated loss of $330m in the first year of her network’s airing.