What happened when 10,000 women met Oprah for the first time

ONE moment at Oprah’s big event last night could have turned very awkward, but she handled it like an unflappable pro. Because that’s what she is.

I HAD an evening with Oprah last night. Which means I had an evening with about 10,000 near hysterical middle-aged women and roughly 300 uncertain men who braved the oestrogen.

I’m a huge Oprah fan. I’ve laughed and ugly cried my way through the past 25 years of her work but I wasn’t really sure what an evening with Oprah would entail.

Mostly I hoped she’d just yell celebrity names at the top of her voice over a crazy screaming crowd. HHHUUUUUUUUUUUGH JAAAAAAAAACKMAAAAANNNN is in town after all.

Unfortunately, no.

Oprah brought no Hugh Jackman, although the ladies brought the crazy before Oprah even made it to the stage, revved up while they waited by every hit the 80s could muster.

Truly, there is nothing more enjoyable to me than watching someone’s mum go off to the Eurythmics, as though she’s just remembered how to move her hips again. Multiply that by, well, 10,000 and you have an idea of the energy in the room.

Those women hadn’t had so much fun since their niece’s 21st.

So when the lights went down and Oprah entered the stage, glorious in a tangerine sequined floor length gown, she was met with screaming that could rival a crowd of Beliebers. And we hadn’t even been given a car each.

Anyway, the show began and … well … I couldn’t say there was anything in there that I hadn’t heard before, which is probably not her fault given I’ve basically stalked her for most of my adult life. But it felt a bit like she was preaching to the converted. We all went there to be told the message we all already believe in, so that we could agree with the message and go away believing in the message just a little bit more. It was kind of like church that way, except with comfier chairs and much more expensive wine.

A vision in tangerine. Oprah certainly didn’t disappoint.

So what did she actually do? Spoiler alert. Oprah talks about finding your purpose. She shares her life story, which is always moving. She could have broken Facebook with inspirational quotes, and I did take away a renewed understanding of the positive impact I want to have in my life.

She’s funny and charismatic and vulnerable and there were pretty pictures and soaring music. And she was so, so slick. I spent most of the time trying to work out if she had a secret autocue, because she spoke for two hours, with barely a stumble.

Even when a young woman from the audience STORMED THE STAGE AND THREW SOMETHING AT OPRAH!!!! Yes, that happened.

Someone, — who clearly didn’t understand that Oprah, like the Queen or the Pope, is not a person you approach without invitation — threw what looked like a wallet at Oprah, before being dragged off by security.

Like all moments of surrealism, we all watched it as though it was in slow-mo. Even Oprah, who saw her coming and let out a tiny frightened squeal when the possible wallet was tossed towards her. I wondered, in this whole production that seemed so carefully choreographed, if that was the most real Oprah we were going to get to see. Someone up the back yelled out “sorry”, which I thought was good manners. Oprah made the point that the times we live in are not ones in which you should be throwing things at people on stage. And then she went on with the show as though someone had no more than sneezed in her direction.

Amazing.

I would have vomited into my own cleavage.

A packed-out Melbourne crowd listened on in awe, and Oprah delivered.

So, yes, Oprah was inspiring. Imagine, when she was eight, a little black girl in apartheid state Mississippi, she wrote out and stuck to her mirror the last two lines of the 19th Century poem, Invictus: ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul’. Whereas I, at the same age, wrote out the lyrics to Madonna’s Holiday. Not inspiring.

Although that did come in handy in the before show mass 80s dance off. As Oprah says, we really are, each of us, where we’re meant to be.