Oprah Winfrey & Maria Shriver on Four Decades of Friendship (October 2021)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Making Space with Hoda Kotb

Episode: Oprah Winfrey & Maria Shriver on Four Decades of Friendship
Air Date: March 4, 2026 (original interview from October 2021)

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Episode Overview

This exceptional episode welcomes Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver to Making Space, where Hoda Kotb explores the power, resilience, and transformational beauty of a four-decade friendship. Both Oprah and Maria share personal stories, pivotal moments, the honest truths they’ve exchanged, and how they’ve supported each other through life's most profound challenges—from loss and public scrutiny to moments of spiritual awakening and joy. Their candid reflections reveal not just what sustains a lasting friendship, but how true connection makes both life’s burdens and triumphs more meaningful.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Nature of Deep Friendship

• How They Describe Their Bond
  • Maria describes their friendship as “long, deep… simple, low maintenance, trustful, loyal, constant, consistent, honest, tried and true.” (02:53)
  • Oprah emphasizes a “spiritual connection,” tracing their first meeting to “a divine moment” when they met in the bathroom at WJZTV:

    "I forever 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." (03:14)

  • Oprah admits her close friend circle has always been intimate: "Everybody knows Gail. There's Gail, there's Maria, there's Bob, and that's about it.” (03:21)
• Honest Truth-Telling in Friendship
  • Hoda asks about handling “truth bombs,” and Oprah responds:

    “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 saying is true.” (04:51)

  • Maria shares: “When she gives it to me, I take it from somebody who has known me, knows me, and wants the best for me… she has had to hit me over the head a few times over the years. And sometimes that truth has leveled me. But in my darkest moments, she was right there, sitting right next to me, holding space." (05:06)

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Support During Grief and Loss

• Maria’s deeply personal story about losing her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver:
  • “If you had told me that at the age of 52, I would finally get up the nerve to crawl into bed with my mother, hold her, and tell her I love her, I would have said you were nuts.” (06:00)
• Oprah on being present through Maria’s loss:
  • “You do what all friends do. You just hold the space. Cause you don’t know the words. You don’t know what is going to be the comfort. So you just try with your own presence, be the comfort.” (06:47)
  • Oprah shares a key lesson from that time:

    “Never, ever go to the hospital… without somebody there to advocate for you.” (07:49)

• Maria recalls, after the passing of her uncle, Oprah organized a “Team Maria” gathering, where friends engraved words on colored stones to show their support:
  • “She had everybody choose a word about me… and then she put them in this beautiful box and presented it to me…” (08:47)
• Oprah’s word for Maria:
  • “Cherish. Because I cherish everything about her… her frankness, her directness, her honesty, her sense of searching for the truth, her courage.” (10:32)

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Early Career and Life in Baltimore

• Both recall their humble beginnings:
  • Maria: “We were like both working at this thing. And we would eat in the supermarket… because all we did was work… we just worked and ate french fries.” (11:40)
  • Oprah: “We worked all the time. We took a lot of abuse that we wouldn’t take today. We did a lot of things that…” (14:07)
  • They laugh about the struggles, lack of dating life, and the closeness that developed out of adversity.

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The Story of “By Thy Grace” — Healing and Encouragement

• Hoda prompts the duo to recount the powerful moment involving the song “By Thy Grace”:
  • Oprah was struggling during the rocky launch of the OWN network and feeling deeply discouraged (20:33).
  • Maria, after learning how much the song meant to both of them, arranged for singer Snatam Kaur to appear at Oprah’s birthday celebration in Hawaii:
    • “Turns out she’s a mile down the road… We called her… and we had worked it out that we would be sitting there and then we'd have a little toast… she’ll come down the steps, and it’ll be just this moment.” (22:59–24:31)
  • Oprah on the impact:

    “I think tears literally shot out of my eyes because I couldn't... There she was yesterday, we were at the table... and now she’s on my front porch. It was the most out-of-body, surreal…” (24:31)

  • Maria:

    “She wouldn’t do something for herself that she would do for other people. And it was really a God moment… stuff started to turn around after that.” (25:30)

• Oprah's Transformation
  • “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… Stop looking at it as this God awful, oh, I made a mistake, and being defined by other people's idea of it.” (25:50)
  • “That moment with my friends, led by Maria—By Thy Grace—is what started to turn me around.” (30:28)

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Life Lessons and Growth

• On Evolving with Age
  • Maria:

    “If I think back, you know, 20, 30 years, I thought I’d be cooked by this time… I feel lighter, I feel freer, I feel more alive. I am surprised by how awake in my own life I feel.” (34:14)

  • Oprah:

    “The thing that I love most about my life is the sense of gratitude and appreciation… Everything that I have gotten, I actually, I work for it, I earned it… There’s a sense of contentment and peace that comes with that.” (34:52–36:31)

  • Maria on boundaries:

    “From the very beginning, like, [Oprah] was off limits, period, period, period, to everybody… it’s us to the other… that’s kind of been a big part, I think, of safeguarding this relationship…” (37:02)

  • Oprah:

    “I don’t play that.” (38:09)

• On Rest and Permission to Pause
  • Maria tells Oprah:

    “You’ve also earned the right to rest. Whatever you do now should come from a place of total desire… you have earned not only this place that you've built.” (38:41)

  • Oprah reflects on how rare it is for women to allow themselves rest:

    “You deserve rest… the very notion that you can give yourself permission to rest is a foreign concept to so many women.” (39:59)

• On Little Moments and Being Seen
  • Maria:

    “These little moments in our lives, I think, at the end of the day are what… 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… those are the transforming moments.” (41:22)

  • Oprah:

    “The thing that grounds me in my friendship relationship and cherishing Maria is that she really sees me… when she sees you, I mean, she really makes an effort to really get you. That is a real life skill.” (41:43)

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Candid Reflections and Humor

• Maria and Oprah share humorous anecdotes about Maria’s family pushing Oprah to do more even early in her career.
  • “You come and sit at the table, and Sarge [Maria’s father] wants to know, what have you done lately? What are you working on? Maria comes from the kind of family, no matter who you are, you know you’re not doing enough in the world.” (44:06)
  • Maria’s story about her father's reaction to someone taking a “honeymoon with themselves”:

    “As his most ridiculous, selfish comment I’ve ever heard.” (44:37)

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Letting Go, Aging, and New Freedoms

• On letting go:
  • Maria:

    “Probably my marriage. Or my vision of whatever I thought my marriage was.” (45:31)

  • Oprah:

    “I had to let go of this notion that I could make everybody happy… there are going to be some people who, no matter how character driven you think you are… I can’t stand her. I really don’t like her… letting go of the notion that you’re never gonna to please everybody.” (45:53)

  • Oprah notes the hurt decreases with age: “67. Things hurt less.” (46:35)
  • Maria:

    “I feel lighter… 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. I’m finally the boss of me.” (46:42)

  • Oprah:

    “The best thing [about this age]… you have nothing else to prove. Anything you do, you choose to do it because it’s going to bring you pleasure, meaning, enjoyment, fulfill some kind of purpose… but you have nothing to prove. Because you already proved it.” (47:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “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 saying is true.” — Oprah (04:51)
• “She has had to hit me over the head a few times over the years. And sometimes that truth has leveled me. But in my darkest moment moments, she was right there, sitting right next to me, holding space.” — Maria (05:06)
• “Cherish. Because I cherish everything about her… her frankness, her directness, her honesty, her truth, her courage.” — Oprah (10:32)
• “That moment with my friends, led by Maria, By Thy Grace, is what started to turn me around.” — Oprah (30:28)
• “Everything that I have gotten, I actually, I work for it, I earned it… There's a sense of contentment and peace that comes with that.” — Oprah (34:52)
• “You’ve also earned the right to rest.” — Maria (38:41)
• “I don’t play that.” — Oprah, on not allowing others to use her friendship with Maria as a connection or favor (38:09)
• “I’m finally the boss of me.” — Maria (47:53)
• “You have nothing else to prove… Anything you do, you choose to do it because it’s going to bring you pleasure, meaning, enjoyment… nothing to prove, because you already proved it.” — Oprah (47:58)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 02:24 — Maria and Oprah describe their friendship
• 04:51 — On truth telling and receiving honest feedback
• 06:47 — Supporting each other through grief and loss
• 08:47 — “Team Maria” gathering
• 10:32 — The meaning of “cherish”
• 19:28–25:50 — Story of “By Thy Grace” and Oprah’s healing
• 34:14 — Lessons on evolving and continuing to grow
• 38:41 — On granting oneself the permission to rest
• 41:22 — The significance of “little moments”
• 45:31 — Letting go of marriage and people-pleasing
• 46:42 — Discoveries and freedoms in later life

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Closing Tone and Reflections

Throughout the episode, the warmth, candor, and wit between all three women create an atmosphere both intimate and enlightening. Their storytelling, unguarded admissions, and mutual admiration offer a powerful lesson: that long friendships, like lives, are built day by day, through honesty, presence, forgiveness, and cherishing the “little moments.” Fans, aspiring friends, and anyone seeking inspiration about resilience, change, and meaningful connection will find this conversation unforgettable.

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Transcript

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[Maria Shriver]

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[Maria Shriver]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Oprah Winfrey]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Oprah Winfrey]

Credit stop if you cancel any lines.

[Hoda Kotb]

Qualifying credit required. So have you ever wondered what it would be like to be best friend friends with Oprah Winfrey? Now, we all know that Oprah has Gail, but Oprah also has Maria Shriver. They go back more than 40 years. Their friendship has endured so many of life's big moments. Love, loss, birth, death, divorce, even growing older. I'm about to invite you into a conversation so intimate and reflective, it's kind of like you're out to dinner with the two of them as they look back on their friendship. And look ahead too. Maria and Oprah both spent their lives listening to others share their stories. And today, kids, we're gonna listen to theirs. I'm Hoda Kotb. Welcome to my podcast making.

[Maria Shriver]

Is this starting?

[Hoda Kotb]

I think so. The first.

[Maria Shriver]

I just want to say that we both love you. Yeah. Because we've never done this before.

[Oprah Winfrey]

No, I just had to do it because Hoda asked.

[Maria Shriver]

Both of us just said yes because it was you.

[Hoda Kotb]

Well, you.

[Maria Shriver]

You.

[Hoda Kotb]

I'm honored. Look, 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?

[Maria Shriver]

Oh, my God. Long.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes.

[Maria Shriver]

Long.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This word.

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah. Long. Deep.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

The longest.

[Maria Shriver]

40. Over 40 years.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Maria Shriver]

I would describe it as deep, simple, low maintenance, trustful, loyal, constant, consistent, honest, tried and true.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Maria Shriver]

Can we keep going?

[Oprah Winfrey]

I love that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oprah, how about you? How do you describe your friendship?

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'd say that there is a spiritual connection. I say the reason I first met her in the bathroom at WJZTV early in the morning. I was coming in to do the morning cut ins and she was 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 forever 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. Everybody knows Gail. There's Gail, there's Maria, there's Bob, and that's about it, you know. And Gayle and Maria, I met around the same time. Gayle and I, 42 years. Maria 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's gonna tell you the truth no matter damn.

[Hoda Kotb]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 talking about. You already know what I'm saying is true. You know what I'm saying is true. Yes, she does.

[Maria Shriver]

She does it right back. She does it right back.

[Hoda Kotb]

How do you receive it?

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah, well, it depends who's giving it to me. When she gives it to me, 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 you know, she has had to hit me over the head a few times over the years. And sometimes that truth has leveled me. But in my darkest moment moments, she was right there, sitting right next to me, holding space.

[Hoda Kotb]

You know, it's so strange. 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.

[Maria Shriver]

Now, if you had told me a few years ago that at the end of my mother's life, she and I would sit in a room and just be. I would have said you were crazy. If you had told me that at the age of 52, I would finally get up the nerve to crawl into bed with my mother, hold her, and tell her that I love her, I would have said you were nuts.

[Hoda Kotb]

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. You said, I love you. And then I looked into the congregation and there was Oprah. And I thought, right there, right next to her. How did you support Maria during that time?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, you do what all friends do. You just hold the space. Cause you don't know the words. You don't know 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 both Maria and Gayle had these intense relationships with their mothers. And, you know, Gayle would call her mother so many times during the day, I'd say, what could you possibly talk about? And 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 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 work for her, because I believed if she decided she wanted it, she would get it. 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 Maria had with her mother in the hospital changed me forever about having an advocate. I don't care who you are, 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'd gone home and had that infection, and then you all came back to the hospital and. And you couldn't get anybody to respond because it was the weekend and the doctor was golfing and the da, da, da was happening, and all of that was going on, as I recall. We thought that that was gonna be it. They came in and Priest was there, and we thought that was it. And then that Eunice came right out of it.

[Maria Shriver]

She did. That was an incredible moment that she. But I can also say that 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, it was like, was this gonna happen? So I always thought, I'll never be able to survive that. And after my mother passed away, two weeks later, my uncle passed away, and 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. I'm gonna have all the people who love you, they're all gonna come to my house, and we're just gonna have this girls 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. She goes, 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 timria. I was like, wait, what? I'm like. And she invited, like, 20 girls to her house. She had everybody choose a word about me. And she engraved them on rocks. They were colored rocks, not rocks, but kind of crystal colored stones. And then she put them in this beautiful box 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 Oprah.

[Hoda Kotb]

What was your word? Do you remember?

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm so glad. I was just getting ready to tell you that. Poda, you are the interviewer. I was just gonna 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 her courage. I mean, for me, the word was cherish.

[Maria Shriver]

I love that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I cherish you.

[Maria Shriver]

I love that. Because I didn't feel. I don't feel like in my life. I was cherished and pushed, motivated, you know, all of these kind of really strong words, but not cherished. And I think that our relationship, you know, what started, as she said, in Baltimore. We're both living in the same. What do you call that? 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

They were called Luxury Garden Apartments, Maria.

[Maria Shriver]

Luxury garden apartments. We were like, we had a supermarket and we were like both working at this thing. And we would eat in the supermarket. Cause they had these big french fry kind of potato things. And we had like no social life at all. Although she was on.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because all we did was work.

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah, we just worked at 8. And she had. But she had, you know, kind of furniture and she had clothes and she was, you know, and she would go to church and speak.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Maria Shriver]

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 gonna like do something really big. And I see you in a church, I see you speaking. But she, you know, it was kind of, in a funny way, a beautiful time because it was quiet and it was intimate and it was 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 believe that or remember this? Or did you, you know, that kind of stuff? Which is just. Cause so few people you can really talk to honestly.

[Hoda Kotb]

Honestly.

[Maria Shriver]

And that you feel safe. And you know that like when I walk out the door, I know nothing's safe going anywhere.

[Hoda Kotb]

When you guys were young, hanging out together.

[Maria Shriver]

We're still young.

[Hoda Kotb]

And you were. Of course you are. But how did people ask you guys out on dates? Were you dating? How was that seen during that time in your life?

[Maria Shriver]

I was already going out with Arnold, So I was 22 and so. And you had. No, you had not met Stedman at that point? Yeah. You were going out. You can take it from there.

[Oprah Winfrey]

No, I didn't meet Stedman until. 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 Maria and I lived 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 the bed. Cause 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. We did a lot of things. That.

[Maria Shriver]

That's true.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Isn't that the truth?

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And 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, same whole thing all over again. And I went to church. I was very, very cause you. When I left home, when I left Nashville in 1976 and came to Baltimore, the last thing my father said, and the most 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 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, if things don't go well or if things do go well. So I had 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.

[Maria Shriver]

So.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And that was my life. That was our life.

[Maria Shriver]

And kind of to, I would say, to Oprah's unbelievable credit, or, you know, that her life, you know, went from there, obviously, to Chicago and then went through all of these kind of changes and everything. It's still a very core little group.

[Hoda Kotb]

Isn't that funny?

[Maria Shriver]

And which I think is so kind of awesome. And, 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 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, the death of yourself, the rebirth of yourself, the evolution of herself, the change of herself. And it's kind of like if you don't think that often, you just step back and you're like, damn, how blessed am I to have that for that length of time, the duration of that time, and all the laughs and tears and joys and not have lost our way.

[Hoda Kotb]

So what do you get for a friend who gives so much to others? Maria, on surprising the queen of surprises and the story behind the song By Thy Grace that lifted up Oprah during one of her darkest moments. Stay with us.

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[Hoda Kotb]

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 she said there's one single song that she said soothed her. And so this is, I think you'll

[Oprah Winfrey]

be able to hear, hold on.

[Maria Shriver]

It's By Thy Grace

[Announcer]

that I see

[Maria Shriver]

is By Thy Grace

[Announcer]

that I see

[Maria Shriver]

It's By Thy Grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. Oh, this is the best story on earth.

[Hoda Kotb]

So, Gabe, I am so excited because 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?

[Maria Shriver]

No, you tell it and then I'll interrupt.

[Oprah Winfrey]

No, Maria, you tell it. I'll tell. Well, you tell Your version of that?

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, you tell your version.

[Maria Shriver]

Okay. My version is. So she was having a birthday, and she had a very small group of girlfriends in Hawaii. She just kind of built her place in Hawaii. And she was having. It was at the beginning of own, which was a rough period. And so we're sitting.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Not just rough. Every newspaper, everybody was saying, you should have kept your day job. The struggling own. What'd you leave the Oprah show for? It's disaster. It's about just one story after another story after another story. And news people would sit up and, you know, joke about it. It was Schorden Freud at its greatest. You know, it was really a bad time for me. So go ahead.

[Maria Shriver]

Really a bad time. 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 Sanadum Koram came on, 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, she'll find out your favorite cake, your favorite people, and do all this sort of stuff. And it doesn't often come back that way. Right. Cause she's not organizing her own birthday. Right. So I got up from the table, and I was like, can you imagine? Like, if this had been my thing, she would have gotten that woman to come and sing for me. No, no, no.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can I interrupt?

[Maria Shriver]

Can I interrupt?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can I interrupt? I actually said. I actually said to you, oh, my God, I thought to have her here. And then I thought, nah, it's just my birthday. But if I were doing this for you, if I'd have known you really liked her, I would have done it for you. But I didn't think I could do it for myself. I didn't think I could do it for myself. I said, oh, my God, I love her so much. I thought to do it for myself. And then I thought, no, but if it was your birthday, I would have done it.

[Maria Shriver]

That tells you something about her.

[Hoda Kotb]

Does.

[Maria Shriver]

Anyway, so we started making calls. I started to try to find her 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 who had introduced the music to me. Do you know or do you. 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.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, my God.

[Maria Shriver]

So we called her, and she's doing some concert or something. So we said, look it, you have to come over in pa'.

[Hoda Kotb]

Ya.

[Oprah Winfrey]

She's doing a concert in paella.

[Maria Shriver]

In paella.

[Oprah Winfrey]

30 minutes from my house.

[Maria Shriver]

30 minutes from her house. Okay, what are the chances of that? The odds? 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? You call it the God moments, where we look out at 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 there were producers. Like, I was originally a producer.

[Hoda Kotb]

Did Oprah know about anything?

[Maria Shriver]

No, she didn't know anyone.

[Hoda Kotb]

You had no idea this was happening? Okay, this is good, right?

[Maria Shriver]

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 house radio. And then you, dressed in your white thing, you'll come down the steps, and it'll be just this moment. 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 at. 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 at the sunset. All of a sudden, you hear this music start to come on. And she's like, mm. And so she starts to hear the music, and I'm holding her hand. We're, like, looking at the thing.

[Announcer]

Mm.

[Maria Shriver]

And all of a sudden, right, you take it from here. No.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I'm thinking, it's the speaker. Somebody's playing the music on the speaker. And then I turn and Sanatam Kaur is walking down the stairs of the porch. Because she was on the upstairs balcony. 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 I couldn't. I couldn't connect that. There she was yesterday. 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. Your sunset cocktail.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Singing it's by thy grace I sing your holy name. Is that a moment or what?

[Hoda Kotb]

That's a moment. That's the best moment.

[Maria Shriver]

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 is my judge, stuff started to turn around after that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Is that right, Oprah?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, yeah. That was the moment for me. Because if something that miraculous can happen, if something that close to being. 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 Maria goes, how do you know that song? I go, how do you know that song? And in less than 24 hours, that person is on your front porch. I just thought, okay, God is with me. 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 is, you want to share with the public in a way that represents you and stop looking at it as this God awful, oh, I made a mistake. And being defined by other people's idea of, of, of it. So in that moment, by thy grace I sing your holy name. That was it.

[Maria Shriver]

It's by thy grace that I sing your holy name. It was so beautiful, by the way.

[Hoda Kotb]

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 By thy grace. Yeah, it's the best. Wake up. Cause you gently, gently wake up. How do you. When you have an on your knees moment, which sounds like the own. That beginning part was. Was that the lowest that you'd seen Oprah, Maria?

[Maria Shriver]

By that time, Oprah, you know, was a big public figure. So this was a big, you know, public, you know, humiliation for me. Yeah, it was a humiliation. 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 like, who starts a network? You know, 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. 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. And so I think that it was, you know, a moment where she had to, in a way, go back to her grit that built, you know, her career. And people forget that they just saw her as Oprah Winfrey.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But, you know, the other thing, Hoda and Maria, the other thing was it was a big learning lesson for 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, Maria, and just sobbing. Remember that?

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Sobbing, saying, oh, gee, I think I've made the worst 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 Thy Grace 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 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. And 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 with my friends, led by Maria, by thy grace, is what started to turn me around.

[Maria Shriver]

You know, it's not like Oprah became Oprah. Like there's grit, there's all nighters, there's Nashville, there's Baltimore, there's sitting across keys, there's working the way up, there's being yelled at, there's being told you're to this, to that, to whatever, that there's

[Oprah Winfrey]

being harassed, there's being, you know, all kinds of looking the other way in order to get ahead. I mean, I think we both came up at a time where there were aggressions and microaggressions all the time. 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.

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And understanding that, that you just keep your head up and keep going. Keep your head up and keep going.

[Hoda Kotb]

When we come back, Oprah and Maria on why they feel it is the little moments in life that have the biggest impact on their friendship.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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[Oprah Winfrey]

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[Maria Shriver]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Hoda Kotb]

People, 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.

[Maria Shriver]

Well, that I'm continuing to grow and continuing to change and evolve. I think that to me, if I think back, you know, 20, 30 years, I thought I'd be cooked by this time, or I thought I knew everything there was to know. And I feel lighter, I feel freer, I feel more alive. I am surprised by that. I am surprised by how awake in my own life I feel. So that, to me, is a godsend. It's a miracle, actually. And so I think that that's something I never thought about Oprah.

[Hoda Kotb]

What about you?

[Oprah Winfrey]

The thing that I love most about my life is the sense of gratitude and appreciation. I mean, I never for one day actually have lost the sense memory of being raised in dire circumstances. I remember one night here, 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 grandmother's porch in Mississippi. And then I just thought, well, it certainly is a. The frogs may sound the same, but the life from Mississippi to Montecito is just like light years in difference. But I am constantly reminded of. I mean, the last time Maria was here, we were walking around and we just took a walk around. I think it was a socially distanced walk at the time. 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 imposter syndrome. I was telling her 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 gotten, I actually, I work for it, I earned it. And, you know, I live in this beautiful space surrounded by trees that I

[Maria Shriver]

love

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 peace that comes with that. That actually, I don't think I'm surprised. As 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 having to make decisions that please other people and don't please you.

[Hoda Kotb]

That is freeing. That's gotta be freeing.

[Maria Shriver]

And I think the other thing that I' If I do say so myself, that we've done well is I think sometimes if you're friends with somebody really well known, then other people come to, can you do this? Can you get so and so to do that? Could you get so and so to do that? Could you? And I, from the very beginning, like, she was off limits, period, period, period, to everybody and every. Even in my own family. Wow. So if my brothers wanted to, like, good her and they found a way

[Oprah Winfrey]

around me on their own, which.

[Maria Shriver]

But, you know, this is devoid of anything else. It's like, I protect it. It's, you know, and vice versa. And it's. And that has been a challenge at times where people think, oh, could you just please, could you just ask. Oh, you could do. And if we've ever done things for each other and with each other, it's from us to the other. And I think that that's kind of been a big part, I think, of safeguarding this relationship, or at least in my mind.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, I would say so, too. Same here. I mean, people would try to get me to get something to you or a member of your family, and I just go, I don't play that. I don't play that.

[Maria Shriver]

Last time I. Last time I saw Oprah was actually, like, two weeks ago, because I was up there and 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 the right to rest.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes.

[Maria Shriver]

And I remember you looked at me kind of like, what? I was like, you've earned whatever you do now should come from a place of total desire and whatever. Cause you have earned not only this place that you've built.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, I love that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, 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. Yes. I was working with this meditation therapist when I was doing tour last year, just before COVID 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 a foreign concept to so many women. So the fact that Maria was reminding me of that on my own doorstep, I was like, what? Oh, yeah, okay. Thank you so much.

[Hoda Kotb]

And the fact that 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.

[Maria Shriver]

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, she would. You know, this sounds so kind of silly, but she, like, would say, like, oh, here's a cup of coffee I made for you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I brought the coffee and paper to

[Maria Shriver]

your door, and I was gonna. I'm gonna cry. It was so 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 when I turned 60, I'd just gotten, you know, separated. I was in a bag. She's like, I'm gonna give you a party. When I was living in a hotel, she's getting. I wanted to come and sit in the room next to you. I'm gonna bring you the coffee. I'm gonna. These kind of, you know, little moments in our lives, I think, at the end of the day are what, you know, I grew up in 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. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 Maria is that she really sees me. And she tries to do that with everybody. I know you feel that in your relationship with her. I know her children feel that. And that when she sees you, 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 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.

[Maria Shriver]

Oh, my God, I love you. Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 gonna say that out loud. That's because you've gone through a period where you'd lost so many people.

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Sometimes. Sometimes, Hoda, she'll just go checking in.

[Maria Shriver]

Okay. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Maria Shriver]

My favorite text, and she's like. She's like, I'm good. I'm good. Okay. I was just type, buddy check. Where are we? How are we?

[Hoda Kotb]

You know, it's one of my favorite texts to ever get is that one.

[Maria Shriver]

Are you. Buddy check, buddy check.

[Hoda Kotb]

What were you.

[Maria Shriver]

I was going to say this really funny story that I had, Oprah. It 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 of life. It just always. My brother was like, could you write something other than, like, death, divorce, you know, whatever? But I was talking, and 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 doing the commercial.

[Hoda Kotb]

Let the people have the moment.

[Maria Shriver]

Let them cry. Let them emote. Don't give them an assignment. And I was like, oh,

[Oprah Winfrey]

yeah. Maria comes from the kind of family 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 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 talking about a friend who'd gone on a vacation and had decided, what was it? They were gonna take a leave of absence or something?

[Maria Shriver]

No. Was that the one where they were taking a honeymoon with themselves? Was it that?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. A honeymoon with themselves.

[Hoda Kotb]

And what happened?

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah, my father said I was like. This friend of mine said I just had 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. As his most ridiculous, selfish comment I've ever heard.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah.

[Maria Shriver]

He's like, outrageous. Don't ever think like that. I was like, okay, all right. I won't, I won't, I won't. But they were like that with. 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? Get the people on the TV show do. 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, 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 show, man.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, guys, what was the most difficult thing you had to let go of in your life?

[Maria Shriver]

Most difficult. You go first.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Ooh, Maria. I'll let you take that, babe.

[Maria Shriver]

Most difficult thing I had to. Probably my marriage. Yeah. Or my vision of whatever I thought my marriage was. Yeah. I have a lot of things.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 gonna 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 character driven you think you are, no matter how centered of a moral compass you think that you have, that there are people like, I can't stand her. I really don't like her. You know what I mean? So I think letting go of the notion that you're never gonna to please everybody.

[Hoda Kotb]

And does that still hurt or not so much anymore?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Not so much. Listen, 67. Things hurt less. Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

What's the best thing about being this age?

[Maria Shriver]

Wow. I think there's a lot of great things about. I remember Oprah, you telling me, like, when you turn 60, you're gonna. People are 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 lighter to the point of like, you know, I think a lot of my life I spent kind of living to please my parents 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 with people that I love. I don't wanna travel by myself. I know some people like that, and I don't like that. But I wanna experience joy and happiness and connection and deep connection. And I'm able to do that now. My kids are cooked. I'm single. I'm free. I'm my own boss in so many ways. I'm finally the boss of me. I'm finally the boss of me. I love that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oprah, what about for you?

[Oprah Winfrey]

What's the best thing, 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 enjoyment. Fulfill some kind of purpose that you want or desire, but you have nothing to prove. Nothing to prove because you already proved it.

[Hoda Kotb]

Man, y', all, this was beautiful. I love you. I love you both. Thank you, guys.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thanks for making space for us.

[Maria Shriver]

Yeah, thanks for holding space for us.

[Hoda Kotb]

Anytime. Love you guys.

[Maria Shriver]

Let's go on a trip. Let's go have some fun.

[Hoda Kotb]

I'm ready to go.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Let's do it.

[Maria Shriver]

Let's do it. That I see is by thy grace

[Announcer]

that I see see

[Maria Shriver]

it's by thy grace that I see your holy.

[Hoda Kotb]

Hey, guys, thanks so much for listening and going on this journey with me. If you like what you've heard, and I sure hope you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and be sure to tell your friends and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. Making Space with hoda Kotb is produced by Allison Berger and Ursula Sommer, along with associate producer Olivia Ruschard and audio engineer Bob Mallory. Original music by John Estes. Bryson Barnes is our technical director, Minna Kathoria is our executive producer, Soraya Gage is our general manager, and Madeline Herringer is our head of editorial. The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar, your lucky jersey, your

[Maria Shriver]

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[Hoda Kotb]

in your even bigger cargo space. And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch

[Oprah Winfrey]

diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist, and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an suv.

[Maria Shriver]

It's your Equinox Chevrolet. Together, let's drive.