Oprah Winfrey Explains Why She 'Never' Thought She'd 'Make It' to 60

Oprah Winfrey is reflecting on her childhood.

When Winfrey, 70, appeared on the Today show Tuesday, Aug. 20, to help celebrate Al Roker as he turned 70, the pair sat down for a conversation about aging.

"I was excited to make the number. I’m excited to make every number," Winfrey said, when Roker asked how the iconic actor and talk show host felt when she marked her own milestone birthday back in January. "I remember many, many years ago as a young girl, I always thought I would never make it to the 60s or 70s. I had this number in my head that I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to be out by then.’ "

"I don't know why," she added. "I think I had a vision of it when I was a kid and I think it is because under the circumstances that I was living [in] when I was a little girl in Milwaukee on welfare with my mother. What I now know is if I had stayed in those circumstances, I probably wouldn’t be here, healthy and strong and vibrant." 

Winfrey was born to her single mother Vernita Lee — who died in 2018 at age 83 — in 1954 and grew up in poverty, living in Mississippi, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Tennessee at different times in her childhood. She has additionally spoken about experiencing sexual abuse as a child and a teenager, before she eventually embarked on her career in news media and entertainment.

When Roker asked Winfrey if she felt her "concept of gratitude" had deepened with age during her Today show appearance, she answered, "I would not say that it’s deeper Al, because I’ve been doing it for so long. I would say that there’s a sense of knowing that there isn’t as much time life and I am at peace with that knowing."

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"And there’s a sense of urgency, for me, about living well," she added. "And so that’s all about health."

Winfrey has long said she never expected to live as long as she has. In 2019, she told PEOPLE that she never even imagined she would live past age 56 and cited a dream she once had as the reason why. “When I got to 57, it was like, ‘Why did all my life I think it was going to be 56?' " she said. “At the time I started having this vision of 56, it was when I was in Milwaukee and I was trapped in a world where I could see how dire it was."

While marking her 70th birthday back on January 29, Winfrey wrote an essay published by Oprah Daily in which she said she was "going through old journals, photos, memory boxes, feasting, savoring and marveling at the discovery, pain, joy and wonder of 70 years of growing into the woman I am" to celebrate.