Oprah Winfrey is pushing back on a claim made by Sen. Mitt Romney in a new biography.
A spokesperson for Winfrey tells The Hollywood Reporter that, despite a claim in a new book, Winfrey was never considering a run for president in 2020 and did not ask Romney to join her on a ticket.
“In November 2019, Ms. Winfrey called Senator Romney to encourage him to run on an Independent ticket,” the spokesperson says. “She was not calling to be part of the ticket and was never considering running herself.”
In the upcoming book Romney: A Reckoning, by veteran political journalist McKay Coppins, Romney, a Republican from Utah, recalls receiving a call from the media mogul, who is a Democrat, claiming that they should form a unity ticket “to save the country.”
Axios first reported on the excerpt from the book Monday.
Winfrey is no stranger to politics, of course. She is a close friend of Barack and Michelle Obama, and not only endorsed the former president but has interviewed each of them a number of times, including a special for Netflix earlier this year.
Winfrey also weighed in on the Pennsylvania Senate race in 2020, endorsing John Fetterman over his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a man whom Winfrey helped make a household name thanks to frequent appearances on her daytime talk show, and the subsequent launch of his own eponymous program.
And while Winfrey has been rumored to have considered a run for office in the past, Romney’s claim made news because it suggested that her desire was more serious than previously thought.
The new statement seems to pour cold water on that idea.
