Nobody would argue that Oprah Winfrey has been a very influential brand for many years. In a main stage talk at Cannes Tuesday morning, she said she “hated” the idea when people first started calling her one back in the 1990s. 

Winfrey is the recipient of this year’s Cannes LionHeart award, which celebrates an industry luminary who has driven positive and lasting change throughout their career.   

She discussed her life, career, brands, the reason we’re all here -- and more -- in a discussion with Cannes Lions Chairman Philip Thomas. 

She said her initial dislike of being likened to a brand stemmed from her belief that it diminished her “real intention to be authentic.” 

But she overcame her misgivings and embraced accepting that “my heart is my brand.” In part that means creating “what is meaningful to me,” which she has done over many platforms, most notably her long-running syndicated talk TV program. 

She told the Cannes audience that marketing and creating “is a role you play. There is a bigger reason we’re all here.”  

In 1989, after her TV show had become a mega-hit, Winfrey said she made a decision “to not let TV use me” and to transform her platform “to do good.” She decided that she would no longer do any show where her and her team weren’t aligned on the purpose of the episode, “so when I’m in that seat, I’m true to myself.” 

“Everyone has a platform and circle of influence,” she said. Hers is somewhat bigger than most. 

Winfrey’s backstory is not a secret. She grew up poor (no running water or electricity) in Mississippi. Her parents never married, and as Winfrey told her audience, “had sex just one time,” producing a child who recently was named number one on Forbes’ list of the 250 Greatest Living Self-Made Americans. 

In 2007 she built a school in South Africa that “interrupted poverty” and changed the trajectory of the 800-plus girls who have attended and gone to college and greater accomplishments. 

She recalled talking to the poet Maya Angelou about her legacy. Winfrey said she believed the school she created would be it. Angelou responded that she had no idea what her legacy would be. 

She’s come to believe that anyone’s legacy is anchored by “every life you touch.”