Oprah Winfrey

The 69-year-old chat show icon saw the economic difference between herself and the kids she attended school with growing up in the Wisconsin city of Milwaukee with just her father after her mother struggled to look after her.

In 1986, she said: "I realized I was poor then. I was bused to school. I'd get on the bus in the evening and go home and the white kids would go to the pizza parlour and drive their cars and stuff."