Oprah Winfrey opens up about why she never had kids

IN A candid interview, Oprah has revealed why she never had kids and has responded to allegations that she had a nervous breakdown in 2012.

IN A candid interview, Oprah Winfrey has responded to allegations that she had a nervous breakdown, revealed why she never had kids, and what she wants to do in the future.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the 59-year-old media mogul admitted that she's never had a burning desire to be a mum, preferring instead to focus on her career.

"If I had kids, my kids would hate me," Winfrey said.

"They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them."

After more than 4,500 episodes spanning 25 years, Winfrey decided to wrap up her popular talk show in 2011 to launch a new TV network, OWN.

"When [my producers] called me in and said, 'I know, we could take the audience to outer space,' I knew it was time to go," Winfrey said.

But OWN struggled from the outset, bleeding money and suffering from a torrent of bad reviews in the press.

Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard in a scene from Lee Daniels' "The Butler".

"I had become so accustomed to succeeding that I no longer even remembered what it was like to fail," Winfrey said to The Hollywood Reporter.

Things were so bad that in 2012 Access Hollywood reported that the billionaire suffered from mental health issues due to her tanking network and ridiculous workload, a claim that Winfrey denies.

"I never had a nervous breakdown," the TV legend said.

"I thought that was such sensational exploitation."

In 2013, things are looking up for OWN, and for Winfrey herself.

She's tipped to receive an Academy Award nomination for her role in Lee Daniels' The Butler, and now she her sights set on Broadway.

"It's something I would like to do, but I'd like to get settled in my house, have a life and then make the next move," she said.

"I'd just like to be in the space where I really feel like I have nothing to prove. I think I'm just about there."