On Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey shut down a reporter who asked the star if she’s planning to run for president.
The reporter caught Winfrey as she was heading into the Apollo theater in New York City on a rainy afternoon, to host her SuperSoul Conversations podcast.
Oprah was signing an autograph when the reporter asked if she was planning to launch a presidential campaign.
‘I already answered that question honey child, you know that,’ she said.
Oprah Winfrey refused to answer questions about whether she’s running for president as she arrived at the Apollo theater for a taping of her podcast on Wednesday
‘I already answered that question honey child, you know that,’ she told reporters gathered outside the theater
Oprah raised hopes of a possible Winfrey 2020 ticket with her rousing Golden Globes speech last month
Winfrey waved goodbye to the photographers before heading into the historic theater on Wednesday
She then waved at the photographers gathered outside and headed into the theater.
SuperSoul Conversations is a podcast Oprah has been recording since September.
On Wednesday, several celebrities stopped by the Apollo to take part in Oprah’s podcast including Stephen Colbert, Jordan Peele, Trevor Noah, and 2 Dope Queens.
Colbert laughed when asked if Oprah was running for president, while Peele said ‘we all hope so’.
Stephen Colbert, left, and Trevor Noah, right, were among the other celebrities who stopped by the Apollo on Wednesday
Jordan Peele, left, and Lin Manuel-Miranda, right,are pictured arriving at the theater
Oprah’s best friend and CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King had a security guard help her walk on the icy streets outside the theater
While Oprah has stated in two recent interviews that politics aren’t in her nature, she hasn’t specifically ruled out a run since her stirring Golden Globes speech last month raised hopes of a Winfrey ticket.
As she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, Winfrey gave a rousing speech, touching on the stides black Americans have made in Hollywood, and the change women are currently bringing to the industry after the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Winfrey brought the house to their feet with the speech, and the celebrities in the audience were among the first to suggest that she should run for president, in interviews after the show.
That night, Winfrey’s longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham fueled the conversation by telling reporters that she would ‘absolutely do it’.
Rumors about whether Winfrey would run for office were reignited again after her Golden Globes speech last month, when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award
This turned to serious speculation the following day, when CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that Winfrey was seriously considering entering politics after being urged on by friends following the speech.
In a new interview with WSJ. Magazine published this week, Oprah Winfrey said she has no plans to run for president. That interview was conducted in October
But the speculation has been tempered since then by the release of two interviews with Winfrey, both conducted before the speech, in which she said she’s not interested in the White House.
She told InStyle in an interview published in January that she doesn’t ‘have the DNA’ to take Trump on in 2020. That interview was conducted a few weeks before the Globes.
‘I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not.
‘And so it’s not something that interests me. I don’t have the DNA for it,’ she said.
And in another interview released this week in WSJ. Magazine, she said there’s ‘no way’ she’d be president.
‘I do a few things really well. But I don’t want to manage. I don’t want to spend my days and nights creating policy. I want to continue to be involved with stories that allow people to see the best of themselves, to find a higher good,’ Winfrey told the magazine back in October, about three months before her headline-making Globes speech.