‘Making Space With Hoda Kotb’: Oprah Winfrey & Maria Shriver On Friendship

[Music] all right here's here's my favorite thing right now i feel like there's like a lot of friendship in this room and i'm looking at maria i'm looking at oprah and i'm just thinking about like how would you maria how would you describe your friendship with oprah oh my god uh long yes long yeah long no do you eat this actually why one of the longest yeah the longest long longest 40 over 40 years wow um i would describe it as deep uh simple low maintenance trustful loyal constant consistent honest um tried and true wow um can we keep going i love that oprah how about you how do you describe your your uh i'd say that there is a spiritual connection i'd say the reason i first met her in the bathroom um at wjztv early in the morning i was coming in to do the morning cut-ins and she was uh doing evening magazine and had been up all night was in the bathroom literally splashing water on her face and we started a conversation and i i for ever think that that was like a divine moment that happened because she was one of my true grounded friendships that carried me through my entire career so i don't have a lot of friends uh everybody knows gail there's gail there's maria there's bob and that's that's about it you know and gail and maria i met around the same time gail and i 42 years marie and i 42 years and i never really expanded that circle until recently i you know i've become friends with a couple of people in my later adult life in the past five years but the thing that got me through all of those years i would say grounded and the truth oh my god maria is going to tell you the truth that's better well how do you receive it when maria tells you because maria actually oprah had a real truth telling with me recently and it leveled me but it was exactly what i needed to hear but sometimes it's hard to receive it when she gives you one of those hard truth bombs how do you receive it yes one of the big ones so and maria will give it to you in your face and then say and you know what i'm talking about you know what i'm not eating you already know what i'm saying is true oh i'm saying it's true yes she doesn't she does it right back she does it she does it right back so like there's no uh yeah well it depends who's giving it to me when she gives it to me um i i take it from somebody who has known me knows me and wants the best for me so i don't i receive it without agenda and i receive it because she's telling me out of love but she wants me to you know she has had to hit me over the head a few times over the years and um and sometimes that truth has leveled me but in my darkest moment uh moments she was right there sitting right next to me holding space this is called holding space right this whole podcast making space um and i think you know very few people can hold space for you and she held space for me before i even knew the expression to hold space you know i didn't even know what that was going on what she was doing but i understood it to hold space for me to uh understand what was going on at a certain point in my life and waited for me to get to the other side you know what's so strange um oprah just about an hour or so ago i was just looking around online and i for some reason i came upon your mom's funeral and i watched your eulogy and it moved me to my core especially when you said at 52 years old you did something you didn't think you could do you crawled in bed with your mother and said like you said i love you and then i looked into the um into the congregation and there was oprah and i thought right there right next to her um how did you support maria during that time well you do what all friends do you you just hold the space because you don't know the words you don't know um what is going to be the comfort so you just try with your own presence be the comfort and you try to meet the person exactly where they are and you know maria uh both vira and gail had these intense relationships with their mothers and you know gail would call her mother so many times during the day i'd say what could you possibly talk about and maria was maria and her mother were always you know like talking all the time so i had the opposite of that and i used to envy it like wow i wonder what that would be like so to be able to stand there in the moment you know i could feel many times during um the transition of eunice kennedy shriver whom i always said if she had run for president i would have stopped anything i was doing and went and worked for her because i believed that she decided she wanted it she would get it and um but there were moments even before her passing like maria what i remember the most i was just telling somebody the other day this experience that maria had with her mother in the hospital changed me forever about having an advocate i don't care who you are you you should never ever go to the hospital spend one hour in the hospital without somebody there to advocate for you because remember when your mother was sick and she had gone home and had that infection and then you all came back to the hospital and you couldn't get anybody to respond because it was the weekend and the doctor was golfing and the dividend was happening and all of that was going on that's when your mother you know for you know as i recall we thought that that was going to be it they came in and priest was there and we thought that was it and then that eunice came right out of it after she did that was an example yeah that was an incredible moment that she's but i can also say that um when my mother died which is something that i had like worried about really my whole life my mother was sick when i was little and so kind of her impending passing was always very much in my life you know i was like was this gonna happen so i always thought i'll never be able to survive that and after my mother passed away um two weeks later my uncle passed away and um oprah had been at my wedding she was at my mother's funeral and then she called me right after my mother died and said i'm gonna have a gathering for you we're gonna be call it team maria we're gonna i'm gonna have all the people who love you they're all going to come to my house and we're just going to have this girl's weekend and i was kind of like what what you know like i was like what is she talking about and i was like okay that sounds like nice this was like three shows it'll cheer you up it'll be good and then my uncle died and then she's like i think we should still go ahead with the team i was like wait what i'm like and it was like literally a month was something like that a month or two months after both of those things she invited like 20 girls uh to her house and we just knew you what like all of them knew you well yeah and that's when we all chose the word yes that's true what was the word yeah and i have that she we she had this she had everybody choose a word about me and she engraved them on rocks they were colored rock not rocks but kind of crystal colored stones yes stones excuse me and then she put them in this beautiful box that looks kind of like those boxes those uh books behind her and presented it to me and everybody wore the same clothes and we had lunch and it was just this really sweet loving like moment of like you've got a posse you've got a group we're here we love you you're gonna make it through what was the word oprah what was your word do you remember i'm so i was just getting ready to tell you that you are the interviewer is there a picture of you what are you going to say and you know what my word was my word for maria was cherish because i cherish everything about her i cherish her frankness i cherish her directness i cherish her honesty i cherish her truth i cherish her sense of searching for the truth i cherish your courage i mean for me the word was cherished i loved that i loved that because i didn't feel i don't feel like in my life i was cherished and uh pushed motivated uh you know um all of these kind of really strong words but uh not cherished and i think that our relationship you know what started as she said in baltimore we're both living in the same um what do you call it like not condos but it was just like apartments they were like and she was on the she was the upstairs and i was in the downstairs and she had clothes and furniture they recall luxury garden apartments okay luxury garden apartments we were like and we had a supermarket and we were like both working at this thing and we would eat in the supermarket because they had these big french fry kind of potato things that we had like no social life at all although she was on tv yeah we just worked at eight and she had but she had you know kind of furniture and she had clothes and she was like you know and she would go to church and speak wow and in baltimore and i was like oh my god look at you you're like speaking in a church and like this is so huge you're going to like do something really big and i see you in a church i see you speaking and but she you know it was a kind of in a funny way a beautiful time because it was quiet and it was intimate and it was um kind of real and those are the moments i think that like when i'm just sitting alone with you and i just come and hang with you or like that's what i cherish in my friendship when we just sit there and like can you believe you know can you can you believe that or remember this or can did you you know that kind of stuff which is just because so few people you can really talk to yeah honestly honestly and that you feel safe and you know that like when i walk out the door i know nothing's going anywhere yeah when you guys were young hanging out together we're still young and you were of course you are but how did did did people ask you guys out on dates were you dating how how was that seen during that time in your life i was already going out with arnold so i was 22. and um so and you had not no you had not met steadman at that point yeah you were going out because you can take it from here no no no no no listen i was in bad relationships all the time but maria is correct i mean both of our lives were consumed by working that was when i remember maria once putting remember that boss that i had that little short guy that was so annoying anyway i remember putting in my my time sheet one week and it was a hundred and two weeks i 102 hours i'd worked in a week and he came up to me and said well i can see you're not a team player and i said what do you mean he goes well you live close to the station because marie and i live within like a mile of the television station and so when you lived that close to the television station they expected to be able to call on you if there was you know a four alarm fire or if there was an accident or whatever you just get out of bed because you're the closest reporter and so the bottom line is we worked all the time we took a lot of abuse that we wouldn't take today yeah we did a lot of things right that's true isn't that the truth yeah uh and um i didn't have a whole lot of time for dating because my life was just really consumed by literally you just go to work and then you get up the next day and start the thing the same whole thing all over again and i went to church i was very very very because when i left home when i left um nashville in 1976 and came to baltimore the first thing the last thing my father said and the most uh imminent thing for him was find a church home you must find a church home which is what happens in the african-american community if you're raised in a church culture where you're going to now leave that city you need to find whatever is going to be your church base which means um basically that you're connecting to a kind of community that you've been familiar with that's going to help support you you know in if things don't go well or if things do go well so i found my church home and had my one friend maria who lived in the same apartment complex my one friend gail who lived in chevy chase so um and that that was my life that was our life and kind of too i would say to oprah's unbelievable that credit or you know that her life you know went from there obviously to chicago and then all went through all of these kind of changes and everything it's still a very core little group and which i think is so kind of awesome and like when i've had a little you know if i've had a dinner for oprah's birthday it's like the same like she has a core thing there and um and you feel safe in that core friendship and it's just when you've like you know had somebody who's gone through the birth of all your children with you right your marriage your divorce the death of your parents uh the death of yourself the rebirth of yourself the the evolution of herself the change of herself and um it's kind of like if you you don't think that off you just step back and you're like damn like how blessed am i to have that for that length of time the duration of that time and um all the laughs and tears and joys and uh and not have lost our way wow and there were there was a moment you told me maria about you and oprah that still to this day touches me and we were in the makeup room oprah maria and i and she she said there's a there's one single song that she said soothed her. oh this is the best story on birthday on i am so excited because just just so you know she played that song for me we had an eye lock maria and i i was crying like i felt it and i got chills all over my body and she said i'm gonna tell you a story about this song will you no you you let her you don't tell it and then i'll interrupt you can you tell it i'll will you tell your version yeah you tell your voice okay my version is um so she was having a birthday yep and she had a very small group of uh girlfriends uh in hawaii and she just kind of built her place in hawaii and um she was having uh it was at the beginning of own which was a rough period needless to rough yeah and um and so we're just rough every newspaper everybody was saying you should have kept your day job the struggling own what would you leave the oprah show for it's it's disaster it's about it just one story after another story after another story and new people would sit up and you know joke about it it was short and freud at its greatest you know it was really a bad time for me yeah go ahead really a bad time and she was uh it was yeah she was kind of being raked over the coals publicly and everything and she was really hurting so we went to hawaii and we were sitting in the dining room and the sanadam korum came on the um music thing and she and i both started like singing to the song and i was like how do you know that song and she's like how do you know that song and i was like oh my god that song has helped me through and this was after i had just gotten separated and she's like oh that song is helping me and so we started then talking about this song and the singer and she was like you know and oprah's the kind of person that if she's throwing something for you she will go she'll find out your favorite musician you'll find out your favorite cake your favorite people your friend and do all this sort of stuff and it doesn't often come back that way right because she's not organizing her own birthday right so i got up from the table and i was like can you imagine like if she if this had been my thing she would have gotten that woman to come and sing for me so can oh my god i thought to have her here and then i thought nah it's just my birthday yeah but if i were doing this for you i didn't know you really liked her i would have i would have done it for you yes but i i i didn't i didn't think i could do it for myself exactly okay so oh my god i love her so much yeah i like to do it for myself and then i thought no yeah yeah so that tells you that tells you something about her anyways so i got up from the thing and we started making calls i started going to try to find her yeah right i thought to myself she's in california i know she lives in california somewhere but i didn't know her i don't know anything about so i called the guy that who had introduced the music to me do you know or do anyway long story short by the next morning this other woman who was at the party we find this singer turns out she's a mile down the road oh my god so we called her so we call her and she's doing some concert or something so we said look it you have to come over in pain she's doing a concert in paige okay 30 minutes from her house okay what are the chances of that the odds what are the chances none zero so we get her we convince her to come over because every evening like right before dinner we sit on the porch and we look for what oprah calls his god moments right there you call the god moments where we look out at the the ocean and everything we have a little cocktail there on the porch and so we had worked it out that we would be sitting there and then we'd have a little toast and you would hear what there were producers like what i was originally did oprah know about that she didn't know anything you had no idea this was happening okay this is not good right so we're like i'm like okay well we'll start with this toast and then the music will start and she'll think the music is on the you know house radio and then you dressed in your white think you'll come down the steps and it'll be just the small i have goosebumps and so we go out onto the porch we have our cocktails i'm sitting in the rocking chair next door we're looking i'm like wow look at this like ocean it's beautiful and she's still kind of like you know like not in a great mood or whatever and then we're like look look at the sunset all of a sudden you hear this music oh gosh start to come on and she's like yeah yeah and so she starts to hear the music and i'm holding her hand we're like looking and all of a sudden right you take it from here no so i'm not thinking it's the speaker somebody's playing the music from the speaker yeah because you place it on them and then the song and then i turn and sanatan core is walking down the stairs of the porch because she was on the upstairs balcony yeah she is walking down the stairs of the porch and it was the most out of body surreal i think tears literally shot out of my eyes because they couldn't i couldn't connect that their shoes yesterday like it was midnight we were at the table yeah midnight we were at the table with me saying you know if i'd have known you really liked her i would have made sure that she was here but i didn't think you know i'd do it for my own birthday and she's now on my front porch for sunset cocktails i mean wow singing if by thy grace i'm seeing your whole name by the way and by the way that's a moment it's the best moment it was really one of those kind of for me once in a lifetime moments it also was like you know that she wouldn't do something for herself that she would do for other people and it was really a god moment and as god as my judge stuff started to turn around after that is that right oprah yeah yeah yeah i would say yeah that is that was the moment for me because if something that miraculous can happen if something that close to be that was pure alignment the fact that the music comes on when it comes on we're sitting at the table i'm humming it and marie goes how do you know that song how do you know that yeah because it's not something most people are yeah yeah so uh and in less than 24 hours that person is on your front porch is i i just thought okay god is with me uh it's still possible to be aligned it's still possible and so i started to shift the idea of this struggling network to what an awesome thing to be able to have a network in your name and what a great opportunity to be able to say something whatever that that is you want to share with the public in a way that you know represents you and stop looking at it as this god-awful oh i made a mistake and being defined by other people's ideas right of of of it so and that moment by thy grace i sing your holy name that was it it was so beautiful by the way i have since fallen in love with that song deeply and it is also the song that goes off at 3 15 in the morning that's my wake up oh my god yeah it's the best wake up cause you gently gently wake up um how do you when when you have an on your knees moment which sounds like the own that that beginning part was was that the lowest that you'd seen oprah maria well i saw that that was you know by that time oprah you know was a big public figure so this was a big you know public um you know uh humiliation for me yeah it was a humiliation for her and i knew she was taking it itself she had just come off of the show that had been a really big moment right and she was just getting you know knocked around and it people don't remember like who starts a network no you know how people don't give you any grace space they don't hold space for you to get it right right they didn't give her any space uh they just expected her to go from the oprah winfrey show into you know a network that was all humming and doing and you know that was from nothing but would be there 24 hours with perfect programming they didn't give her any time yeah and um so i think that it was you know a moment where she had to you know in a way go back to her grit yeah that built you know her career and people forget that they just saw her as oprah winfrey and um but but you know the other thing uh hoda maria the other thing was it was a big learning left me and by thy grace and the fact it was that song and all that that meant and that my friend maria and all the other women at the table had had the thought at midnight to try to find her all of that energetically came into play with being able to switch my head around and because prior to that night prior to that moment which was like the last moment of the evening we had been at the table and i remember laying my head down on the table sobbing yeah remember that yeah yeah oh gee i think i've made the you know worse mistake and why did i do it and blah blah blah and so to go from that moment sobbing on the table with my friends to the next day by the grace uh showing up was really transformative for me it was healing it's exactly what you want your friends to be there to do number one you want your friends to stand in the gap for you and to say you are not whatever definition you're using to define yourself so part of the problem in that moment was that i had been so accustomed to succeeding that the idea of not succeeding felt like the most giant felt like i personally failed not like the network failed and i later realized as i talked to lots of businessmen who would buy companies and sell companies and do ventures and lose on this thing and gain on that thing that men don't look at it the same way this is a business that i started and this business works it's great if it doesn't then i move on to the next right and i was taking it so personally like this personally means that i have failed because i am listening to you know all the naysayers and all of the schadenfreude but that moment um with my friends led by maria by that grace is what turned started to turn me around but i think i think all of us need that thing to sneak up yeah yeah and i think what oprah's also saying can you imagine like your head is on the table you saw you think like it's over you're a failure and you know with soon after that if people hold space for you and hold you or whatever that you can get a new lease on life that you can look at something differently and i think that's a kind of a life lesson for everybody yeah that in that moment when you think like uh i just can't go on i'm a failure so it can turn around you're feeling your perspective and your belief in yourself right and she went on to build a successful network when people said she was finished she was done it was over and you know has gone on to you know extraordinary achievements since then mm-hmm so i think people you know i think it's funny like people say to me like even when she did the harry and meghan in her interview this year like oh my god oprah can interview i'm like oh yeah hello i'm like yeah you know and i remember telling you that you're like well you know it has been 10 years since i was like but people forget that how hard this is how hard people work and work their way up yes you know it's not like oprah became oprah like there's grit yes there is all-nighters there is nash yeah there's baltimore there's you know sitting across keys there's working the way up there's being yelled at there's being told you're you know to this to that to whatever you know that there's been harassed there's been you know all kinds of looking the other way yeah in order to get ahead yes i think we both came up at a time where you know there were aggression or aggressions all the time yes but you knew that if you were to complain about it or say anything about it you would just be out it would be over there was no recourse yeah and uh understanding that that you just keep your head up and keep going keep your head up and keep going i like that are you guys you know people seek both of you out for advice i know that i do and i know that people do whether it's on a podcast or just in person i know everyone's on your ig live maria everyone anytime oprah says anything everyone wants to lean in are you still learning like what's the most recent kind of revelation or life lesson you've learned at this stage in the game i'll start with maria at this stage well that i'm continuing to grow and continuing to change and evolve i think that to me i if i think back you know 20 30 years i thought i'd be cooked by this time i thought i'd like you know knew everything there was to to know and i'm i actually feel you know so alive at this age i feel lighter i feel freer i feel more alive i i am surprised by that i am surprised uh by how awake in my own life i feel so that to me is is a godsend it's a miracle actually and um so i think that that's something i never thought about oprah what about you the thing that's that that i love most about my life is the sense of uh gratitude and appreciation i mean i never for one day actually have lost the the sense memory of being raised in dire circumstances i remember one night um here uh the frogs were so loud that i actually i could hear them through the doorway and i went out on the balcony and i was like wow this sounds just like mississippi you know it sounds like being on my mother's porch in mississippi and then i just thought well this certainly is a the frogs may sound the same but the life from mississippi to montecito is just like in it light years in in indifference but i am constantly reminded uh i mean the last time maria was here we were walking around um and we just took a walk around i think so three distance walk at the time yeah um and we were just talking about our lives and the fact that everything that has happened to me i actually earned it so we were talking i think about a posture syndrome i was telling about some people say they have imposter syndrome and i'm like i don't even know what that is because everything that i have or had gotten i actually i work for it i earned it and you know i live in this beautiful space surrounded by trees that i love um and have been able to create this life but have never once forgotten the life that i came from in order to get to here and so there's a sense of contentment and and peace that comes with that that actually i don't think i'm surprised this is surprised by it as this i'm just so pleased i'm just so pleased to be in a space where i'm no longer you know marie and i talked about this for a while no longer having to make decisions that please other people and don't please you that is freeing you've got to be free and i think the other thing that if i do say so myself that we've done well um is i think sometimes if you're friends with somebody really well known then other people come to you can you do this can you get someone so to do that could you get so and so to do that could you and i from the very beginning um you know like she was off limits period period to everybody and ever even in my own family so if my brothers wanted to like go to her and they found a way around me on their own but i you know it's i have been you know this is devoid of anything else it's like i protect it it's uh you know and vice versa and it's um and that has been a challenge at times where people like oh could you just please could you just ask oh you could do and um if we've ever done things for each other and with each other it's from us uh to the other and i think that that's a really that's kind of been a big part i think of safeguarding this relationship or at least in my mind this is yeah i would say so too yeah same here i mean people would try to get me to get something to you or a member of your family yeah i don't play that i don't play that i don't last time i my last time i saw oprah was like actually like two weeks ago since i was up there and she she was like i said something like we were talking about her having earned this and i said to her you've also earned the right to rest you've also earned yes to rest yes and i i i you know i remember you looked at me kind of like what i was like you've earned you know whatever you do now yeah you know should come from a place of total desire and whatever because you have earned not only this this place that you've built yeah which is when i first saw it before she moved in she's like i want to show you this thing i was like this is a long way from cross keys that's all i want to say there wasn't even a fountain in cross gates but it's like you've also earned the right to rest and i think that's a big uh i love that you know i know we only have a couple minutes left because you guys have been real generous with your time but what is i think women don't do that i think women in particular don't do that women don't give themselves the right to rest yes i remember uh yes i was working with this meditation therapist when i was doing tour last year just before covet hit hard and we would do this big meditation in the arenas and whenever he would say to the audience you deserve rest you could see tears flowing out of women's eyes men don't cry when they're told you deserve rest but women start to weep because the very notion that you can give yourself permission to rest is is a foreign concept yeah so many women so the fact that maria was reminding me of that on my own doorstep right oh yeah okay thank you so much and it's true and the fact that you're when you talk about your own mom who was like you gotta go go go what's the next thing what's the next thing what's the next thing i mean rest vacation relaxing was not part of the plan wasn't part of the routine no it wasn't allowed and i and that's another thing that i've always said when i have gone to visit oprah when i went um she would you know is this sounds so kind of silly but she like would say like oh here's a cup of coffee i made for you and brought the coffee and paper to your door and i was gonna i'm gonna cry it was so um moving to me because i didn't that's not how i grew up you know nobody brought a cup of coffee or a cup of water to me and she in a funny way even though i had a very close relationship with my mother i wasn't nurtured mothered in that way right and she wasn't mothered in her own way but i think in a way we have mothered each other and um you know when i as i said when you know when i turned 60 i just gotten you know separated i was in the back she's like i'm going to give you a birthday party when i was living in a hotel she's getting i'm going to come and sit in the room next to you uh i'm going to bring you the coffee i'm going to these kind of you know little moments uh in our lives i think at the end of the day are what you know i grew up on a big family and a big life but when i close my eyes it's the little moments it's you having dinner with me it's her bringing the coffee it's having a laugh it's uh you know i think that's i think we're all pushed to have these big big moments but i think it's the little moments that people don't aren't pushed to have that really are the transforming moments but and also for me you know when you're asking that original question about words that describe the friendship the thing that grounds me in my friendship relationship and cherishing uh maria is that she really sees me and she and she tries to do that with everybody i know you feel that in your relationship with her i know her children feel feel that and that when she sees you she i mean she really makes an effort to really get you and when you're in her presence you feel like you're the most important person and that is a real life skill to do that with people so that everybody thinks that that they are your favorite friend you know and that's what you do so well that's one of the reasons why i cherish you so much oh oh god i love you thank you look at that thank you and yes and when you went through that whole phase of like i'm calling people and i'm telling them that i love them i'm going to say that out loud that's because you've gone through a period where you've lost so many people yeah yeah i have a funny story about oprah tell her like just sometimes sometimes she'll just go checking in yeah yeah that's one of my favorite yeah she's like she's like i'm good i'm good okay let's just type buddy check where are we how are we you know one of my favorite texts to ever get is that one or two body checks i was going to say this really funny story that i had oprah always makes me laugh i was on her show and i was i had a children's book out i think it was either about death or alzheimer's i write always about some disastrous part life and just always my brother was like could you write something other than like death divorce meant you know whatever but i was right and i i was talking she was interviewing me and it was a very quiet moment in the studio and people were emotionally having a moment i think it was about alzheimer's or it was about death or something and i was like so you have this so right away now we need to get going we need to like get involved and change the world and oprah was like just give the people a moment like i just calm the f down just like let the people cry we're going to commercial then it's you in the commercials like let the people have a moment let them cry let them emote don't give them an assignment and i was like oh oh yeah that was a little eunice coming through a little newness yes i remember my favorite unit story i was on vacation somewhere and i had seen eunice and said hello and she goes i think the tsunami had happened yes you and maria going to do about this what are you and maria going to do about this i was like well it's me i don't know what we can do and so apparently she was not happy with it with our conversation or what i thought the result should be in that conversation and i'm in the middle of the ocean in the boat and beautiful has rode out to the boat and they're like there's a woman with a pink swim cap with a boat and she said she needs to see you she needs a meeting with you that's the trail yeah true i'm serious what are you going to do about it what are you going to do about it i'll never forget that as long as i lift shoes i went i tracked oprah down this was over christmas vacation she goes i tracked her down i ran down the pier i went out there you two have got to do something there is a tsunami i said well mommy you know i don't oh my god i can't believe you did that oh it's ridiculous that she's not doing something and you and she together is to both of you just sitting there i think it's inexcusable i was like oh my i was like the day after christmas or two days you know i was just like could you leave her oh i was on christmas yeah that's true oh i found her all right i found her i found her i'm were you scared of eunice i was intimidated by yes no question about it yeah no question about it because maria comes from the kind of family no no matter who you are you know you're not doing enough in the world so you come and you sit at the table and and sarge wants to know what have you done lately what are you working on what are you working on next what are you working on after that maria you told this story once about uh talking about a friend who'd gone on a vacation and had decided what it was they were going to honeymoon no they was that the one where they were taking a honeymoon with themselves was it that the honeymoon and what happened yeah my father said i was like this friend of mine said i just added this honeymoon with myself and i was like wow you imagine that so i was like i think i should do that have a honeymoon with myself and this is the most ridiculous selfish comment i've ever heard yeah it's like outrageous don't ever think like that i was like okay all right i won't i won't but they were like that like you know they would be like well because when i brought oprah over to the house for dinner you know when we were in baltimore they're like what's your friend doing now where is she going does she have a tv show to get the people on the tv show to have her do something she should have a tv show and she was on a tv show with this other guy and she was like the sidekick right you know and i was like she doesn't really have any power on the tv show so she can't have a special olympic athlete on the tv okay guys what was the most i just have a couple more things what was the most difficult thing you had to let go of in your life most difficulty you go first maria i'll let you take that babe most difficult thing i had to um probably my marriage yeah or my vision of whatever i thought my marriage was yeah i have a lot of things um i think i had to let go of this notion that i could make everybody happy that i could please everybody that i was going to be the kind of person that everybody was going to actually like i think coming to terms with the fact that you are never going to please everybody and you can't be who you are in the world without accepting the fact that there are going to be some people who no matter how you know character driven you think you are no matter how centered of a moral compass you think that you have that they're people like i can't stand her i really don't like her you know i mean so i think letting go of the notion that you're never going to please everybody and does that still hurt or not so much anymore not so much listen 67 things hurt less yeah what's the best thing about being this age and we'll wrap it up wow i i think there's a lot of uh great things about i remember oprah you're telling me like when you turn 60 you're gonna people gonna start treating you different i was like no no they're not well when but i started i think slowly in my 60s have started treating myself differently and started to be kinder to myself and as i said i feel uh lighter to the point of like um you know i'm uh i think a lot of my life i spent kind of living to please my parents um and please others like she's saying and now i'm really clear about i want to spend my time doing what i love with the people that i love and having more fun and having more fun i want to travel i want to um with people that i love i don't want to travel by myself i know some people like that and i don't like that but i wanna i wanna experience joy and happiness and connection and deep connection and i'm able to do that now my kids are cooked yeah um i'm single i'm free i'm um my own boss in so many ways i'm finally the boss of me finally the boss i love that oprah what about for you what's the best thing about how you want to get to this point because you have nothing else to prove it's just like maria said there's nothing to prove anything you do you choose to do it because it's going to bring you pleasure meaning imminent uh fulfill some kind of purpose that you want or desire but you have nothing to prove nothing to prove because you already proved it yeah we're survivors and i just want to say that we both love you yeah because we don't we've never done this before by the way right so we've never done this and neither one of us knew what we were doing or why we were doing that no i just said i had to do it because hoda asked yeah and was it last year hoda i sent you those flowers did there was a piece where florida did of me on on the today show i looked at that piece and i literally said i'm still alive right i am still living it was like yeah everything you've ever done it was such a great piece i was like but that's really you know because we haven't done this and like we're friends over 40 years right so it's uh actually so thank you for asking us both even though both of us just said yes because it was you i do you i'm honored man y'all this was beautiful i love you i love you both thank you guys thanks for making space for us yeah thanks for holding space for us let's go on a trip yeah let's go have some fun i'm ready to go let's do it let's do it three farms yeah oh yeah okay okay i mean really really come on let's go come on okay love you yeah hold on one second don't don't click off yet hold on one second over what's gonna do a quick picture hold on smile this is hoda's new podcast thank you it's called holding space and making space making space making space well thanks for making space for us i love you i'll call you okay bye oprah bye thank you oh my god

Channel: TODAY

Views: 245,251

Keywords: TODAY, Latest on TODAY, News, Entertainment, Top stories

Id: LjM08J8o7JQ

Length: 49min 7sec (2947 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021