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Oprah insists she did not take a $1 million ‘personal fee’ from Kamala Harris campaign: ‘I was not paid a dime’
Oprah Winfrey again insisted she wasn’t “paid a dime” by Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign — saying her production company collected the paycheck for its work on the star-studded virtual town hall.
The billionaire talk show host attempted to swat down reports that she was “paid a personal fee” for hosting the “Unite for America” event in September after it emerged that her production company Harpo Productions netted $1 million from the gig.
“Usually I am reluctant to respond to rumors in general, but these days I realize that if you don’t stop a lie, it just gets bigger. I was not paid a dime. My time and energy was my way of supporting the campaign,” Winfrey, 70, commented on an Instagram post.
Oprah said she did was not paid “a dime” for hosting Harris’ “Unite for America” virtual town hall in September.AP
Oprah confirmed that employees for her production company were paid by the campaign.AP
“For the live-streaming event in September, my production company Harpo was asked to bring in set design, lights, cameras, microphones, crew, producers, and every other item necessary (including the benches and chairs we sat on) to put on a live production,” she said.
“I did not take any personal fee. However the people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of story,” she concluded.
The Washington Examiner reported Friday that the Harris campaign paid $1 million to Winfrey’s production company on Oct. 15.
Harpo Productions told Variety that Harris’ team did cover production costs for the “Unite for America” event outside Detroit — but asserted that Winfrey, whose net worth is $3 billion, “was at no point during the campaign paid a personal fee, nor did she receive a fee from Harpo.”
Harpo did not reveal the cost of its production work for the virtual town hall, which featured a lineup of big-name celebrities, including Meryl Streep, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jennifer Lopez and Julia Roberts.
Winfrey, who has supported Democratic candidates for decades, told a TMZ reporter on Monday that she “was paid nothing” and called the Examiner’s claims “not true.”
She later joined Harris in her final campaign event in Philadelphia the night before election day.
Winfrey said she did “not take any personal fee”
Staffers told The Post that the lavish concerts were a disaster for the campaign’s finances.
According to the Washington Examiner, her campaign dished out more than $15 million on production fees for events, as well as more than $654 million on advertising between July 22 and November 5.
The Harris campaign blew through $1 billion in just four months during her doomed election bid and out-raised Trump by a large margin, the report said.
Despite her massive fundraising haul, the VP failed to best Trump and still managed to end her campaign $20 million in debt.
The election-eve concerts, which featured Jon Bon Jovi, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, cost her campaign $20 million alone — and now staff and vendors fear they won’t be paid.
