Oprah Winfrey’s nearly triple-billionaire lifestyle may look fabulous on the outside, but when you look at the root of what she endured, you instantly are reaffirmed that great success does not come without great failures…and in some cases, without great tragedies.

Oprah On Being ‘Raped By Her Uncle’

During a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reported, Oprah discussed the time she was suicidal after being raped and becoming pregnant by her relative. Although she’d been molested and/or by several other relatives prior to that moment, her pregnancy was when she’d hit rock bottom and came this close to never reaching her full potential. See excerpts from her interview below:

“I hit rock-bottom,” says Winfrey of her time growing up with her mother in Milwaukee. “I became pregnant and hid the pregnancy. I’d intended to kill myself actually. I thought there’s no way other than killing myself. I was just planning on how to do it. If I’d had the Internet, I might not be alive because now you can just Google how to do it.”

Winfrey says she ended up having a miscarriage, which her father called a “second chance” for her. Winfrey says she took in those words as a mantra throughout her life that helped her to reach the level of success she’s at today, which includes the establishment of her own network. “I was, in many ways, saved by that, and I made a decision that I was going to turn it around,” she adds.

What Did Her Father Do After Learning About The Tragedy?

In case you all are wondering, ‘Why didn’t her dad do damage to her uncle for doing that to her?!!’ We were thinking the same thing. But Oprah didn’t go into detail about whether or not anyone stood up for her. But in a past interview, it was also revealed that Oprah was first raped at age nine. So the fact that she was repeatedly getting raped and molested throughout her childhood, is an indication that she had no one protecting her from the soul-less vultures who were stripping her young innocence away from her on the regular.

The Relationship Of Oprah & Her Mother

Oprah and her mother, Vernita Lee, also had a somewhat detached relationship and it wasn’t until the age of six that Oprah went to live with her single mother. During her interview with HuffPost Own, Oprah described the horror she faced when she was separated from her grandmother- whom she adored- while living in Mississippi, and sent to live with her mom for the first time in her life in Wisconsin:

“I suddenly land in a place that’s completely foreign to me. I don’t know anybody. I don’t really even know my mother. I walked into that space feeling completely alone and abandoned,” confessed Oprah.

Winfrey Is A Warrior

There were many other struggles Oprah endured after that, far too many to dig into in one article. However, Oprah Winfrey’s life yet again re-affirms the saying that great success does not come without great failures and/or tragedies. She’s mastered the art of using pain as fuel for her soul and as a result, millions of children have gotten to see what it looks like to come from pain/poverty to riches- not just from a monetary standpoint, but from a psychological one too.