Hello.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
All right, don't adjust your sets.
My name is Oprah and I'm here today
to help honor Rachael Ray,
as she celebrates her 2,000th episode.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
So here's what happened on May 9, 2005.
I invited Rachael on my show for the very first time.
And even then, I knew it.
She was the real deal.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
The pros,
yeah, you have such a great personality,
that's why you're such a hit.
People like you.
Yes.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
People like you.
Thank you.
I think it's because I'm not a pro.
They see me chopping Yeah.
the onion wrong,
and I make a big mess. Yeah.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
So now, 2,000 episodes on her show later,
turns out I was right.
So please welcome the one and only, Rachael Ray.
(upbeat pop music)
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
Did you see my picture?
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
Hi, everybody.
Yay!
(audience applauding
(audience cheering)
All right.
We're going over to the table.
Over to the kitchen table.
Kitchen table.
I was standing back stage
waiting to come out here.
Yeah.
And I was so freaked out for a million reasons.
But when I saw the picture of the first time
I was on your show.
When I got to her show,
my plane had been canceled the night before.
I was crying in the airport
cause I didn't think I'd get to be on the show.
Be on the show.
Right, right.
I didn't get in til 3:00 a.m.,
crying my eyes out all night.
I slept like two hours.
I got to her show,
and her hair and makeup people looked at me,
and they could just tell the pity they felt for me.
No, no.
And they did my hair that day,
and I wore a fancy dress,
and then I go out,
and I'm like,
Oprah's in jeans,
and I look like I'm an Oprah stalker now.
No, no.
Do you remember that you got your,
when you got that call,
that you were gonna have your own talk show daily?
What do you remember about that moment?
I remember thinking,
my mom, whose here.
Hi, mommy, I love you.
(audience applauds)
My mom told me.
(audience applauds)
My mom told me when I was very young,
if you're not ashamed of where you come from
and you're proud of the job that you do,
you can close your eyes and see yourself
trying whatever it is you want to try,
that you should go ahead and try it
cause the worse thing that could happen is you
go back to doing that thing.
So, I was very nervous and I thought,
well maybe I should tell them I shouldn't be doing this,
but then I remembered the advice.
But she's the one who taught you to cook.
Yes.
Which started all of this.
(audience applauds)
Right?
She taught you to cook, started all of this.
What else did she teach you?
She taught me to value work itself,
to be very grateful for having a job.
Yeah.
She taught me that by starting me off as a DMO
which is a dish machine operator,
which I feel everyone should have to do
for a short period of time in their lives.
So, you know, I do a show called Super Soul Sunday.
Yes, I know, and this book is amazing by the way.
Which is of that.
Thank you, thank you.
(audience applauds)
We always talk about on Super Soul Sunday,
finding your joy.
I wanna know what brings that to you besides cooking.
I know cooking does.
I really do find joy in coming to the end of a day
and feeling like I did my absolute best that day
for everybody.
And animals give me joy.
My family gives me joy.
Seeing children, happy and fed, gives me joy.
I try to find joy in just about everything.
(audience applauds)