*Sigh* A bunch of misinformation is circulating about Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Oprah was vocal about her support for Harris throughout her campaign, including hosting a virtual celebrity-filled event that was watched by over 300,000 people on YouTube.
However, a few days ago, the Washington Examiner wrote in a piece titled “How Kamala Harris plowed through $1 billion,” “There was $1 million for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions on Oct. 15 in West Hollywood, California.”
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Oprah herself has denied this. When TMZ asked whether she had been paid for her endorsement, she replied, “Not true – I was paid nothing, ever.” Harpo further said, “Oprah Winfrey was at no point during the campaign paid a personal fee, nor did she receive a fee from Harpo.”
So yes, going through the Harris campaign’s FEC filings shows they paid Harpo — which Oprah founded — $500,000 twice for event production. It’s not a terribly unusual event production fee for the campaign, which spent many hundreds of thousands on various events. If you look through Donald Trump’s FEC filings, it concurred similar expenses. You can argue that’s too much! That’s fine! Just know what you’re talking about!
If you want to talk about celebrities being paid for their endorsements, it’s worth noting how influencer Tana Mongeau said in September that she “was just offered a lot of money to endorse a political party. Like, millions” — and she wasn’t talking the Democrats!
Great, this has me super excited to cover another four+ years of misinformation!
UPDATE Oprah further said in a followup comment, “My production company Harpo was asked to bring in set design, lights, cameras, microphones, crew, producers, and every other item necessary (including the benches and chairs we sat on) to put on a live production. I did not take any personal fee. However the people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of story.”
Nov. 12, 2024, at 17:41 PM
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