Making breakfast for the family with @gayleking 🍳🥓☕️ #Nashvillestyle
When I was shooting Lee Daniel’s The Butler, @davidoyelowo asked me to watch an indie film called Middle of Nowhere. I googled who directed the movie because I had not heard of Ava DuVernay at the time. There was this beautiful photograph of this lovely Black woman who was wearing glasses just like me. I thought, I want to be her friend! And here we are, almost a decade into our friendship and bringing in @ava’s 50th year on planet Earth. In honor of this life event, we gathered her family and friends and celebrated in Hawaii last week. This is how we kicked off her birthday—stay tuned for more 🥳🥳🥳
@ava’s Five-O party! Thank you to Diana and her @porch_summerland team for bringing Ava’s three day celebration to life! 🥳🥳🥳
Dear @serenawilliams,
What’s there to say?
The years went by…in a blink.
‘98 feels like yesterday.
You’ve given us so much.
All we can do is thank you.
Thank you for making the bright lights
Brighter and the Big Apple bigger.
Thank you for showing us how to be
Graceful.
Powerful.
Fearless.
Thank you for dressing to the nines
And bringing your dancing shoes.
Thank you for turning center court into center stage.
For bringing the house down.
Thank you for showing us what it means to come back
And for never ever backing down.
Thank you for changing the face of the game.
For inspiring the next generation.
Thank you for thinking outside the lines
And encouraging us to evolve.
Thank you for showing us how to love this sport
And for always loving us back.
Just know, that whatever you do next
We’ll be watching.
With love,
All of us
Becoming a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is. They create an environment that’s stimulating and nurturing, pass on a sense of responsibility to another human being, and raise a child who understands that they are created from good and are capable of anything. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who have created a template to motherhood (like @gayleking), new moms who are guiding their kids through the world (like @kirbybump), and mothers who did not biologically have kids but are still mother figures to many. Today—and every day—we honor you.
Vernon Winfrey 1933-2022
Less than a week ago we honored my father in his own backyard. My friend and gospel singer Wintley Phipps saluted him with song. He FELT the love and reveled in it until he could no longer speak. Yesterday with family surrounding his bedside, I had the sacred honor of witnessing the man responsible for my life, take his last breath. We could feel Peace enter the room at his passing.
That Peace still abides. All is well. Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts 🙏🏾
We’re one day away from #Sidney being available for everyone to see. And tonight we had one final premiere to celebrate him as the man, as the father, and as the powerful soul he was. His daughter, Beverly Poitier, asked the crowd today that if they wanted to honor her dad’s legacy, they had to leave the world better than they found it. Because that’s how Sidney lived his extraordinary life. I cannot wait to share more in the next few days. #Sidney is available in theaters and on @appletvplus this Friday, September 23! Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures
First Harvest Day and garden adventure for Luca and my first time pushing a stroller. Goes to show you that it’s never too late or too early to learn something new 👶🏽🥬👩🏾🌾 @kirbybump
I had my first tequila shot 2 weeks after I turned 50 at @johntravolta’s 50th birthday celebration. Those of you who partake know how it changes a party.
In all these years I’ve never gotten @ava, nor @gayleking or @stedmangraham to take a sip of alcohol. So this was a monumental moment. Ava’s first on her 50th birthday party—then after much convincing second shot!
After years of working on the Sidney Poitier documentary, we finally got to show it to an audience at @tiff_net! We spoke his name, we celebrated his incredible life, we ugly cried, and we gave his extraordinary daughters a well-deserved standing ovation for letting us show the world how much we love him. I can’t say this enough: It’s one of the great honors of my life to produce the documentary #Sidney, premiering September 23 in theaters and streaming on @appletvplus. #TIFF22
Giving my father his “flowers” while he’s still well enough to smell them. Happy 4th of July as you gather with your family and friends. Remember to celebrate each other 💐
I’m 10 years old at my mom’s place in Milwaukee. It’s 1964 and Black people are still “colored” and they’re not riding in limousines unless their kinfolk have just died. I press my knees into the cold linoleum and stare into our black-and-white TV. My mouth falls open when Sidney Poitier wins the academy award for Best Actor. I cried tears of joy for him and for the hope and possibility that moment represented. It changed who I thought I could be.
Sidney Poitier came to this world to move it, to shake it, to change it, not only as an actor, but as an activist and a wisdom teacher. He inspires me today as much as he did when I was a 10-year-old girl. It’s one of the great honors of my life to produce the documentary #Sidney, premiering September 23 in theaters and streaming on @appletvplus.
Getting ready for a backyard barbecue. My cousin Burnice raking the yard. I’m sorta mopping the patio #classic Nashville, Tennessee
The time has come: #SIDNEY is available on @appletvplus and in theaters. Since his passing in January, we have not publicly mourned him. So this film, in many ways, is a memorial and celebration of his life. I’m sharing my relationship with him here and in the documentary to show you how much he impacted my life—and how he can still change yours. Please enjoy this offering of the life of Sidney Poitier 🙏🏾🕊 Tap the link in my bio to watch!
A year ago, I released #WhatHappenedToYou with Dr. Bruce Perry. Our hope was that the book would help people heal from their childhood traumas and shift the question from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” What actually ended up happening was far greater than this little girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi—and everything she went through—could’ve ever dreamed of. Not only did it spend one full year on the @nytimes bestseller list, but it connected with so many of you. Thank you to everyone who bought the book. I’m especially grateful to all of you who connected and made your own discoveries.
#WhatHappenedToYou is available at whathappenedtoyoubook.com, or wherever you buy or download your books. Tap the link in my bio to get your own copy!
A year ago, I released #WhatHappenedToYou with Dr. Bruce Perry. Our hope was that the book would help people heal from their childhood traumas and shift the question from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” What actually ended up happening was far greater than this little girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi—and everything she went through—could’ve ever dreamed of. Not only did it spend one full year on the @nytimes bestseller list, but it connected with so many of you. Thank you to everyone who bought the book. I’m especially grateful to all of you who connected and made your own discoveries.
#WhatHappenedToYou is available at whathappenedtoyoubook.com, or wherever you buy or download your books. Tap the link in my bio to get your own copy!
A year ago, I released #WhatHappenedToYou with Dr. Bruce Perry. Our hope was that the book would help people heal from their childhood traumas and shift the question from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” What actually ended up happening was far greater than this little girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi—and everything she went through—could’ve ever dreamed of. Not only did it spend one full year on the @nytimes bestseller list, but it connected with so many of you. Thank you to everyone who bought the book. I’m especially grateful to all of you who connected and made your own discoveries.
#WhatHappenedToYou is available at whathappenedtoyoubook.com, or wherever you buy or download your books. Tap the link in my bio to get your own copy!
A year ago, I released #WhatHappenedToYou with Dr. Bruce Perry. Our hope was that the book would help people heal from their childhood traumas and shift the question from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” What actually ended up happening was far greater than this little girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi—and everything she went through—could’ve ever dreamed of. Not only did it spend one full year on the @nytimes bestseller list, but it connected with so many of you. Thank you to everyone who bought the book. I’m especially grateful to all of you who connected and made your own discoveries.
#WhatHappenedToYou is available at whathappenedtoyoubook.com, or wherever you buy or download your books. Tap the link in my bio to get your own copy!
Back to my Nashville roots! Shelling crowder peas with family for our Fourth of July BBQ 🇺🇸
Heard y’all like the braid! Kudos to @nicolemangrumhair for bringing her to life. And thank you to @thesherylleeralph for reminding us to never stop believing! 🏆🏆🏆 @televisionacad #Emmys
Our next @oprahsbookclub’s selection is… “That Bird Has My Wings,” by Jarvis Jay Masters. Masters is an author, activist and Buddhism practitioner who has been incarcerated on death row in California’s San Quentin Prison for over 30 years. “That Bird Has My Wings,” first published in 2009, is his extraordinary memoir — a deft, wise, page-turning account of childhood trauma, his experiences in foster care, his journey through the American justice system, and his spiritual enlightenment while on death row.
Masters spent over twenty years in solitary confinement, and remains on death row today, for a crime he says he did not commit — and his appeal will be heard in federal court in late October. He’s a gifted writer with an unforgettable story, sharing a powerful message of hope and endurance as well as deep insight into how our childhood experiences shape who we become. Will you pick up a copy and #ReadWithUs?
I visited the set of #TheColorPurple and we cried, we sang, and we even did the Electric Slide. I can tell you for sure this ain’t your mama’s Color Purple—but I bet you, your mama, and the whole family is gonna love this new reimagined and evolved version. Tap the link in my bio to read all about my experience down in Georgia over at @oprahdaily! 💜 Midway, Georgia
The next @oprahsbookclub pick is “Nightcrawling” by @leilamottley, which Leila wrote when was only 17! The debut novel is about a 17-year-old who carries the world on her shoulders. Her father died after being released from prison, her mother recently attempted suicide and is in a halfway house, her brother wants to become a rap star but isn’t bringing in any money, and they’re about to be evicted from their apartment in Oakland. I cannot wait to discuss and explore this book with you. Watch my full announcement over at @oprahsbookclub and get yourself a copy whenever you buy or download your books from! #ReadWithUs
🔊Sidney Poitier paved the way for some of the most iconic voices of our time. Hear from @Oprah, @MorganFreeman, @HalleBerry and more in #Sidney, now on Apple TV+
