Did Oprah Winfrey say she was leaving the U.S. in response to the 2024 presidential election results as a social media post claimed? No, that's not true: She was still in the U.S. hosting a podcast event at her California home after this social media post's publication. The post came from a Facebook account that categorizes itself as "satire/parody".
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on December 5, 2024. Beside images of Winfrey and "The View" co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, the caption of the post said:
NEWS: Oprah Winfrey plans to leave the US after announcement of her appearance on 'The View'. Details in the first comment👇
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Dec 12 13:24:29 2024 UTC)
In the comments, an article (archived here) was linked with the headline, "BREAKING: plans to leave US after announcing her appearance on..." which vaguely mentions unnamed sources and "rumored plans." Neither the post nor the article included any proof of its claim, such as when or where the "plans" that Winfrey purportedly made were announced.
The post appeared on the Facebook account of Viral Scoop, which lists itself (archived here) in the category of "satire/parody."
Lead Stories searched (archived here) using keywords from the post on Google News, finding only one article that mentioned Winfrey. The single article titled, "'Are they going to carpool to Canada?': Is Oprah Winfrey leaving the United States?" reported that "Oprah Winfrey has never expressed any intention to relocate abroad."
A December 10, 2024, post on the verified Instagram account of Winfrey read, in part:
I was elated to invite @melrobbins to my teahouse for a conversation on the #TheOprahPodcast!
That post proved Winfrey was still in the U.S. after the publication of the December 5, 2024, claim. Winfrey's Teahouse is near her home in Montecito, California.
Lead Stories reached out to representatives of Winfrey. This fact check will be updated if any responses are received.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving Oprah Winfrey can be found here.
