Oprah Winfrey is publicly washing her hands of the two biggest television stars she ever created, now that both Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz have moved toward President Trump and conservative politics.
In an interview with Emmy magazine published last week, Winfrey told the Television Academy's publication that the political paths of McGraw and Oz have nothing to do with her, a striking attempt to sever ties with two men whose careers she personally built over more than two decades. The billionaire media mogul, who has endorsed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and Stacey Abrams, framed the split as a matter of individual choice rather than personal betrayal.
But the timing is hard to ignore. McGraw has appeared alongside Trump border czar Tom Homan during an ICE enforcement operation in Chicago, sat on stage at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally in October 2024, and accepted an appointment to Trump's Religious Liberty Commission. Oz, the heart surgeon Winfrey turned into a daytime-TV fixture, now runs one of the federal government's biggest health agencies as the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Both men moved right. And Winfrey wants the record to show she had nothing to do with it.
Winfrey's relationship with McGraw dates to 1998, when the Texas-based television personality helped her through a six-week trial in a lawsuit filed by cattlemen who accused her of defaming the beef industry. McGraw rode in the car with her every morning on the way to court, she told Emmy magazine.
The New York Post reported that Winfrey described McGraw in glowing terms during the interview:
"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. I felt that he was so instrumental in helping me. I thought, 'Oh, you could help a lot of people. You should come on my show.'"
He did. McGraw made 118 appearances on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," according to official statistics from the program. His first book, "Life Strategies," became a bestseller in 1999, with Publishers Weekly crediting Winfrey's endorsement as one factor in its success. By September 2002, Harpo Productions had launched "Dr. Phil" as the first spin-off from Winfrey's show. It ranked behind only Oprah in syndicated daytime talk for nine consecutive seasons and took over the top spot after Winfrey ended her show in 2011.
The Oz relationship followed a similar arc. Winfrey's longtime friend Gayle King introduced her to the heart surgeon, and he began appearing on "Oprah" in 2004. Winfrey said she valued his ability to translate medical topics for a general audience.
She told Emmy magazine:
"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."
Harpo co-produced "The Dr. Oz Show" with Sony and co-founded the digital-health company Sharecare alongside Oz, Sony, Discovery, and other partners. Winfrey did not merely give these men a platform. She built the infrastructure around them, production deals, publishing pipelines, and business ventures that turned cable-TV regulars into stand-alone brands.
The political divergence became impossible to ignore in 2022, when Oz entered the Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary with Trump's endorsement. The former daytime doctor, who had previously described himself as more moderate, ran as a conservative. Winfrey, who calls herself a registered independent, endorsed Democrat John Fetterman over Oz just days before the general election. Fetterman won.
Oz returned to Washington anyway. The Senate confirmed him as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April 2025, placing him atop one of the largest federal health bureaucracies in the country.
McGraw's rightward shift drew even more public attention. He appeared at Trump's Madison Square Garden campaign rally in October 2024, where he defended Trump and his supporters. McGraw later insisted the appearance was not a formal endorsement and declined to say how he voted. But the distance between that claim and his subsequent actions has only grown. He accompanied ICE personnel during an enforcement operation in Chicago alongside Homan, and Trump appointed him to the Religious Liberty Commission in May 2025.
Neither McGraw nor Oz responded to the New York Post's request for comment on Winfrey's remarks. Winfrey also did not respond.
Winfrey framed her role as purely informational, she spotted talent, shared it with her audience, and moved on. Her words to Emmy magazine were deliberate:
"People criticize me for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, because of their politics or their views. 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."
She added that her original intent was straightforward:
"At the time, the reason and intention behind me giving them their breaks was I thought they had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me."
The framing is convenient. Winfrey did not simply recommend two guests to a booker. She used Harpo Productions to create their shows, co-founded a health-tech company with one of them, and leveraged her personal brand to sell the other's books. For years, their credibility was her credibility. Their audiences were her audience. The business relationships were formal, contractual, and lucrative.
Now that both men have aligned with a president Winfrey has publicly opposed, she endorsed Obama, Clinton, Harris, and campaigned for Abrams in Georgia, the connection is suddenly incidental. The breaks she gave them were acts of generosity. Their politics are their own problem.
That is a tidy story. It is also a selective one. Winfrey endorsed Fetterman over her own protégé in a Senate race. She did not simply step aside and let Oz walk his own path, she actively worked against him. The claim of detached neutrality does not survive contact with the 2022 Pennsylvania campaign.
McGraw and Oz are now doing substantive work inside or alongside the federal government. Oz oversees Medicare and Medicaid, programs that touch tens of millions of Americans. McGraw has put himself on the ground with immigration enforcement and accepted a role on a presidential commission. Whatever one thinks of their politics, they are engaged in public service under public scrutiny.
Winfrey, meanwhile, is giving interviews to Emmy magazine about how none of it reflects on her. She wants credit for the launch and distance from the landing.
That is not how accountability works. You do not get to build the platform, profit from the brand, and then disclaim the person standing on it the moment the politics become inconvenient. Winfrey's discomfort with McGraw and Oz is not really about their "paths in life." It is about the fact that two of her most successful creations walked off the progressive reservation, and she would rather pretend the connection never mattered than explain why it bothers her now.
When your protégés choose to serve and your response is to run from the association, the problem is not their politics. It is yours.
