Oprah Winfrey Admits She Was Recently Very Sick With Pneumonia

Oprah Winfrey is extremely wealthy, and she could lay around in her pool all day long on a raft made from woven $1000 bills, but she’s out there working. Which is why Oprah is about to embark upon an arena tour called Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus. However, she recently revealed that she has been laying around, it’s just that the laying around was taking place in a hospital bed.

Oprah talked to Ellen DeGeneres today about her tour, and her latest book club pick. But the big news was when Oprah confessed to having just been very, very sick with pneumonia. Pneumonia can get really serious, like what happened when Whoopi Goldberg got it. Pneumonia is also the reason why we lost Kim Porter last year. 65-year-old Oprah says that she was secretly battling pneumonia and that she had literally been given the OK by her doctors that she’s officially out of the woods the day before she filmed her episode with Ellen. Oprah thought she had a cold, but she really had pneumonia. And she knew it was serious when a lung specialist have her the “Oh shit” face.

“So, here it is. I came back from overseas and I thought I had a cold – but it wasn’t a cold. I ended up in the emergency room and they said, ‘You have pneumonia.’ And I go home, and pneumonia is nothing to play with, y’all. It is very serious. And I was on antibiotics for a week and the antibiotics weren’t working. And then I go back for another CT scan and they go, ‘It’s actually worse. You should see a lung specialist.’ So I go into the lung specialist. He puts his stethoscope here and I see the ‘Oh, shit’ face. It is like, ‘Oh my God, something’s wrong with you.’ And I can see it. He didn’t hide it.”

After more antibiotics and inhalers, 18 vials of blood drawn, and the instruction to cancel everything and not fly for a whole month, Oprah eventually got better. She joked that her lung specialist thanked her three times for getting better, because he didn’t want anything to happen on his watch. Um, you think? I can only imagine what the Yelp reviews would look like for the doctor who killed Oprah.

She also had some advice for the audience:

“Don’t play with it. Get your flu shots and get your pneumonia shots. It’s nothing to play with. It takes people out. But I’m telling you, it changed the way I look at wellness.”

Except here’s the thing. That doctor didn’t have to worry, because Oprah wasn’t going anywhere. You know that God will make sure Heaven is in tip-top shape before his boss, Oprah, comes home. And that takes time. The last thing God wants is for Oprah to look around and sniff, “I assumed these clouds would be cashmere. I was hoping for an a-ha moment, and yet I seem to be getting an uh-oh. What’s one of my favorite things? Not this place.”

Pic: Wenn.com