Who Is Stedman Graham? Oprah Winfrey’s Longtime Partner Encourages Potential Presidential Run

Following social media users reacting to the possibility that Oprah Winfrey could consider a Presidential run in 2020 after her rousing speech at the Golden Globe awards Sunday Night, the media mogul’s longtime partner, Stedman Graham, is speaking out about the possibility.

Following not only Winfrey’s speech, where she told young girls that a “new day” was on the horizon, referencing the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, but also host Seth Meyers’ reverse psychology joke to encourage Oprah and Tom Hanks to team up together on a ticket, Graham told the Los Angeles Times that she would likely consider eyeing the Presidency, especially if the people seemed to want her in office.

“It’s up to the people,” he said. “She would absolutely do it.”

Graham and Winfrey have been together since 1986, though the two have never married, something Winfrey has often addressed, including in a Vogue interview in August 2017.

“Nobody believes it, but it’s true. The only time I brought it up was when I said to Stedman, ‘What would have happened if we had actually gotten married?’” she said at the time. “And the answer is: ‘We wouldn’t be together.’ We would not have stayed together, because marriage requires a different way of being in this world.”

“His interpretation of what it means to be a husband and what it would mean for me to be a wife would have been pretty traditional, and I would not have been able to fit into that,” she added.

Despite not marrying, the two are still one of the most powerful couples in the world. While Oprah is believed to have a net worth of $2.8 billion, and is the first black woman billionaire in history, Graham, an author and businessman, has his own impressive net worth of $10 million. Though he is also best known as Oprah’s longtime partner, he was previously married to a woman named Glenda, with whom he has a daughter, Wendy.

Though the two are not married, that wouldn’t necessarily be an issue for an Oprah run at the Presidency. The U.S. Constitution only states three requirements for one to be the President of the United States: a candidate must be a natural born citizen, 14-year-resident of the country and 35 years of age or older. Oprah, who is 63 and was born in Mississippi, meets all of those requirements.

However, while being married isn’t an actual requirement, it could cause some trouble for her that she isn’t if she decided to run. Traditionalists would likely take issue with her decision to never legalize her relationship in such a way, though unmarried presidents have been elected in the past. However, the nation’s current President, Donald Trump, also wasn’t a traditional candidate in terms of his marriage history, as First Lady Melania Trump is his third wife.