After 25 years, TV megastar Oprah cedes stage

CHICAGO — Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey bade farewell to her trailblazing television program Wednesday, ending 25 years of intimate star confessions and telling loyal fans they had been the love of her life.In a program taped one day earlier at Oprah's Harpo Studios in Chicago, Winfrey took to the stage and, in what had become almost a mantra over a quarter-century, urged her audience to follow their dreams."Each one of you has your own platform," Winfrey said in the show being broadcast across millions of US homes. "Yours is wherever you are. That is your platform, your circle of influence, your talk show."She said if she had one regret it was that she had not been able to focus more attention on the issue of the sexual abuse of children."People ask if I have regrets," she said. "I have none really about the show, but the one thing I feel I was not able to bring attention to even though I tried in 217 shows was the sexual molestation and rape of children. Worse now with the Internet than when I first spoke of it in November 1986."Breaking down many taboos, Winfrey has herself talked openly about being abused as a child, after being born into a life of poverty in Mississippi.There was a single chair onstage, but the daytime-TV doyenne, credited with encouraging Americans to openly discuss their deepest hopes and fears, stood alone and center-stage for most of the hour-long broadcast.In a program featuring a collage of past highlights, Winfrey occasionally poked fun at her long-gone outfits and accessories. But most of her remarks focused on what she called her "journey.""I listened and grew," she said. "I always wanted to be a teacher and this is the world's biggest classroom.""I hope what you will take from this show is to live from the heart of yourself," she said, as her longtime partner Stedman Graham watched from the audience accompanied by her fourth-grade teacher Mrs Duncan. "You have to make a living, I understand that, but you also have to understand what sparks the life of you. So you in your ow

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