Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Emma Brockes

This feels both sacrilegious and scary, but I have a bone to pick with Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey leaves Gritti Palace in Venice on the second day of the wedding festivities of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez on 27 June 2025.
Oprah Winfrey leaves Gritti Palace in Venice on the second day of the wedding festivities for Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez on 27 June 2025. Photograph: Manuel Silvestri/Reuters

A very unusual thing happened at the weekend, an event so outlandish, so vanishingly rare, that even in these times of general chaos and disorder it deserves our attention: someone prominent joined the tiny cohort of people willing to publicly criticise Oprah. I’m not talking about an attack from the right. Donald Trump and his Maga cronies routinely go after Oprah Winfrey as (feel free to laugh) a lefty agitator. I’m talking about the actor Rosie O’Donnell, on Instagram, calling out America’s queen for showing up at the Jeff Bezos wedding.

Of course, criticising someone for throwing in their lot with Bezos shouldn’t be in the least controversial. The gross parade of wedding guests attending his marriage to Lauren Sánchez in Venice last weekend looked like a catwalk of shame. There was Leonardo DiCaprio, hiding his face with his hat (we still see you!), in the company of his positively geriatric 27-year-old girlfriend, Vittoria Ceretti. There were the Kardashians, not hiding their faces. There was Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. And there, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, Gayle King, who walked several paces behind her as is proper, was Oprah Winfrey.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.