Oprah Winfrey revealed that she actually encouraged casting a superstar in her movie The Color Purple to ensure the project would be a box office success.

While admitting the pressure to sell a record number of tickets, the media icon revealed that she was asked if she could ‘shout out Beyoncé’ or Rihanna to star in the 2005 big screen adaptation This Year Are not. Broadway musical, based on the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.

“Honestly, if you made this movie for $30 or $40 million, the interest in the cast would be very different,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. ‘When the movie moved into the $90 to $100 million range, everyone wanted us to bring Beyoncé back. ‘Can you get Beyoncé or can you get Rihanna?’

The talk show host, who originally played Sofia in the 1985 film adaptation of The Color Purple, recalled sitting in a room, saying: ‘Listen, we love Beyoncé. We love Rihanna, but there are other actors who can do this job.’

‘I remember conversations about ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It’s not even a negotiation, because you’re not going to get Beyoncé,” she mused, nodding to the 32-time Grammy winner’s grueling schedule for The Renaissance World Tour, which grossed 579 million. USD.

Meanwhile, Rihanna gave birth to two 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢 boys, just 15 months apart, between 2022 and 2023, while also making headlines for the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show.

Even though she didn’t choose Beyonce or Rihanna, Winfrey still secured a star-studded cast that included Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and Halle Bailey.

Other stars include Corey Hawkins, David Alan Grier, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, H.E.R., Ciara, Jon Batiste and Deon Cole, among others.

Winfrey served as a producer, alongside Steven Spielberg, on the musical adaptation of The Color Purple, which hits theaters on December 25, 2023.

Her revelation comes after opening up about using weight-loss medication to shed 40 pounds in recent months.

The admission comes after Winfrey previously said she would not take Ozempic and similar drugs in the class of weight-loss medications because she viewed them as an ‘easy way out’ during a discussion with WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani.

‘I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,’ she told People earlier this week.

Winfrey’s continued: ‘The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.’

‘I do remember conversations about, ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It wasn’t even a negotiation, because you’re not getting Beyoncé,’ she mused, nodding to the 32-time Grammy winner’s grueling schedule for The Renaissance World Tour, which grossed $579 million (seen in 2003)

Way too busy: Meanwhile, Rihanna gave birth to two boys, just 15 months, apart between 2022 and 2023, in addition to headlining the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, which took place in February

‘I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself’ and added she had actively recommended the weight loss aid to other people before deciding to take it herself.

The star revealed she had taken the medication before Thanksgiving as she knew she would have ‘two solid weeks of eating’ and credits the drug for causing her to only gain half a pound rather than eight pounds, adding it ‘quiets the food noise.’

Winfrey said she is now seven pounds away from her goal weight of 160lbs but said ‘it’s not about the number.’

Oprah weighed 237lbs (107.5kg) at her heaviest, she has previously revealed.

She said undergoing knee surgery in 2021 kickstarted a journey for her to improve her health and live a ‘more vital and vibrant life.’

The broadcast icon said she now eats her last meal at 4pm, drinks a gallon of water a day and uses WeightWatchers principles of counting points, along with regular hikes.

She added that her fitness and health routine are integral to maintaining her weight loss saying: ‘It’s everything. I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me.’

She said: ‘I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications, but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way.’

Winfrey said she was encouraged to use medical weight loss drugs after the taped panel conversation in July with weight loss experts and clinicians – which led to her ‘biggest aha moment.’ The conversation was released online in September and saw Winfrey staunchly denying she would ever take weight loss drugs.

She said: ‘I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control. Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.

During the discussion, the experts insisted that obesity is a metabolic disease with some bodies ‘more predisposed to storing more fat’ – also known as adipose tissue.

Oprah candidly explained: ‘For those of us that are adipose storers, no matter how many times… You’ve all watched me diet and diet and diet and diet, it’s a recurring thing because my body always seems to want to go back to a certain weight.’

She added: ‘If I ate an apple pie at 11 o’clock at night, I would be two pounds heavier in the morning. I can’t eat after a certain time.’

The TV personality, who claimed she had ‘yoyoed her whole life,’ later said: ‘This is a world that has shamed people for being overweight forever and all of us who have lived it know that people just treat you differently. They just do.

‘And I am Oprah Winfrey and I know all that comes with that and I get treated differently if I am 200 plus pounds versus under 200 pounds…

‘There is a condescension. There is a stigma.’

Oprah said that the key was to have friends and partners around you that offered support and ‘rejoiced in your victory.’

Following a more in depth discussion of the weight-loss drugs currently available – including Ozempic and Wegovy – the media mogul said: ‘Shouldn’t we all just be more accepting of whatever body you choose to be in? That should be your choice.

‘One of the things I carried so much shame for, and even when I first started hearing about the weight-loss drugs, at the same time I was going through knee surgery and I felt, “I’ve got to do this on my own because if I take the drug, that’s the easy way out.”

‘There’s a part of me that feels – like I think a lot of people feel with bariatric surgery – that I’ve got to do it the hard way, I’ve got to keep climbing the mountains, I’ve got to keep suffering and I’ve got to do that because otherwise I somehow cheated myself.’

She concluded: ‘As a person who has been shamed for so many years [about my weight], I am just sick of it.’

The star said after this chat, she released her ‘own shame’ and consulted her doctor, who prescribed the weight loss medication.