Oprah Winfrey is “actively thinking” about running for president in 2020 after her stirring Golden Globes speech that addressed race and the #MeToo movement brought the crowd to its feet and raised speculation the media mogul would launch a White House bid, CNN reported on Monday.
The cable network said close friends of the billionaire businesswoman said her confidants are urging her to run and that discussions have been ongoing for months but Winfrey has not made up her mind yet.
Her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, said she’s game.
“It’s up to the people,” Graham, 66, told the Los Angeles Times after the speech. “She would absolutely do it.”
Her best friend, CBS anchor Gayle King, said the speech was “incredible. I got goosebumps.”
Winfrey, 63, quickly got the endorsement of multiple Oscar winner Meryl Streep.
“She launched a rocket tonight. I want her to run for president,” Streep told the Washington Post. “I don’t think she had any intention [of declaring]. But now she doesn’t have a choice.”
Winfrey began her acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement by remembering how her life changed when she watched Sidney Poitier receive the best actor Oscar in 1964.
”Up to the stage came the most elegant man I had ever seen. I remember his tie was white, and of course his skin was black, and I had never seen a black man being celebrated like that,” said Winfrey.
She went on to tell “the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon.”
She defended the “under siege” press, emphasized the need for “uncovering the absolute truth” and praised the women who have come forward to “share their personal stories.”
The address then moved into the realm of a political stump speech, offering a personal message of comfort, inspiration and empathy.
“In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave,” she said. “To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome.”
The speech was hailed as presidential and Winfrey was urged to run against President Donald Trump.
It also generated an Oprah 2020 hastag on Twitter.
“She’s running. A new day is on the way,” “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr. posted on Twitter.