Oprah Winfrey is publicly distancing herself from Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz, two men who owe their careers to her platform, now that both have aligned with President Trump and conservative causes.
In an interview with Emmy Magazine, Winfrey addressed criticism she has faced over the political trajectories of McGraw and Oz, two media figures she personally launched into national fame. Her message was blunt: their choices have nothing to do with her, and she wants nothing to do with them.
The timing is hard to miss. Winfrey spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 21, 2024. McGraw appeared at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally that October. Oz, endorsed by Trump for a Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022 and later nominated to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, now holds one of the most consequential health-policy jobs in the federal government. The two men Winfrey made famous moved right. And Winfrey wants the record to show she had no part in it.
Winfrey told Emmy Magazine she originally brought both men onto her show because she believed they could help ordinary people. She described McGraw as someone who supported her through a difficult period, a lengthy legal battle in the late 1990s that kept her in a courtroom for six weeks.
As Fox News Digital reported, Winfrey recalled how McGraw rode with her each morning on the way to trial during that period:
"Dr. Phil, he was so practical, so down-to-earth, so real. And he would ride in the car with me every morning on the way to trial, where I'm literally sitting on trial for six weeks."
She said she saw McGraw's potential to reach a wider audience and offered him a spot on her show. Oz got a similar explanation, Winfrey said he had a gift for making medical topics accessible.
"He explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements. I thought he had the language for explaining medical things in a way that was helpful to me. I thought it would be helpful to many other people. And that is how they ended up on the show."
But the warmth stopped at the past tense. When it came to their present-day politics, Winfrey drew a hard line:
"Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don't have one thing to do with them."
That is a striking statement from a woman who personally chose both men, built their brands, and sent them into American living rooms for years. Winfrey framed her original decision as purely about sharing "valuable information." She offered no acknowledgment that the massive platforms she created for McGraw and Oz gave them the audience and credibility to pursue any path at all, including the conservative one she now finds inconvenient.
Whatever Winfrey's discomfort, both men have moved well beyond television. McGraw declined to say who he voted for in 2024 but appeared at Trump's October rally at Madison Square Garden. He also accompanied ICE personnel and Trump border czar Tom Homan during immigration raids in Chicago, a hands-on show of support for the administration's enforcement priorities that would have been unthinkable for a daytime-TV personality a decade ago.
Oz's trajectory has been even more direct. After Trump endorsed him for the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate race, a contest Oz lost to Sen. John Fetterman, Trump nominated him to lead CMS, the federal agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid. The Senate confirmed him in 2025. By July 2026, Oz was speaking ahead of Vice President JD Vance at a public event at the 128th Air Refueling Wing Hangar in Milwaukee.
Both men, in other words, have put real skin in the game on the right. They are not just offering opinions on cable news. They are participating in federal law enforcement operations and running major government agencies. Winfrey's attempt to wave them away as people on "their own path" understates just how far that path has carried them, and how much of the road she paved.
Curtis Houck, managing editor of the Media Research Center's NewsBusters, told Fox News Digital that Winfrey's discomfort with McGraw and Oz reveals a selective standard about political friendships.
"Oprah certainly doesn't have a problem with being friends with progressives or anyone willing to take on Trump."
Houck pointed to Winfrey's close relationship with CBS journalist Gayle King and her association with the Obamas as evidence that Winfrey's objection is not to political involvement itself, only to involvement on the wrong side.
"Oprah and her friend/CBS 'Journalist' Gayle King can continue promoting whatever causes they want or pal around with the Obamas, but they shouldn't be seen as non-partisan by any stretch. While I'm sure they're incredibly grateful to her, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz should be allowed to have their own opinions and not be framed as the exclusive partisans."
Houck also took aim at Winfrey's broader cultural positioning, referencing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's use of the phrase "Woke 1", a term meant to dismiss far-left identity politics as outdated.
"Oprah wants us to feel bad for woke Prince Harry and Meghan or the woman in the Coldplay kiss cam. She herself is stuck on Woke 1."
The criticism lands on a clear contradiction. Winfrey appeared on the stage of the Democratic National Convention, one of the most partisan events on the American political calendar. She did not distance herself from that. She did not insist it had "not one thing to do" with her public identity. She embraced it. The distancing only began when the people she launched started showing up on the other side.
Neither McGraw nor Oz has publicly responded to Winfrey's comments, at least not in any statement captured alongside this interview. That silence may be strategic, or it may simply reflect the reality that both men have moved on to stages Winfrey cannot control.
Winfrey told Emmy Magazine that her intentions were good when she gave them their breaks. She said she thought they "had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me." Nobody disputes that. But good intentions at the start do not entitle someone to dictate the outcome forever, especially when the protégés' only offense is holding political views their mentor finds distasteful.
Winfrey built two of the biggest brands in American media. She did it because she believed in those men. Now that they believe in something she does not, she wants a refund on the association. That is not principle. That is convenience.
When loyalty only counts if the other person stays on your team, it was never loyalty at all.
