Oprah 'Realized a Lot of People Are Going to Get Triggered' When Watching Michael Jackson Documentary: 'It's About the Seduction'

Oprah Winfrey made her debut appearance on The Daily Show on Wednesday night and, at one point, the conversation turned to the topic of sexual abuse—something which the talk show host has personally experienced in her past—in particular, the explosive Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland.

During their discussion, Daily Show presenter Trevor Noah asked Winfrey about why she was drawn to interviewing the alleged sexual abuse victims from Leaving Neverland for a special HBO show called "Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland."

"I noticed when you were speaking about that, it felt personal to you, it felt visceral, but you got a lot of hate for doing it," Noah said.

Winfrey responded by saying she hadn't received that much "hateration" since she featured in the so-called "Puppy Episode" of Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom in 1997, in which DeGeneres publicly came out as a lesbian.

"When I first saw [Leaving Neverland] I realized that a lot of people were going to get triggered by watching it and a lot of people will not understand what the pattern is because I had done 217 shows trying to get people to understand that it's not about one person," Winfrey told Noah.

"It's about the pattern, it is about the seduction and people call it molestation but there is a big seducing that goes on and the pattern of that seducing," she said. "And that was important enough for me to take the hateration for it."

Noah then asked Winfrey whether she ever wavered in her belief that Jackson's accusers were telling the truth after the director of Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed, admitted that one of the alleged victims featured in the film, James Safechuck, had made an error when describing the timeline of his alleged abuse.

"You know why I have not wavered?" Winfrey said. "Because I had girls at my school who were sexually assaulted and abused. And I have never won a case. And the reason I have never won a case is because when you put a girl on the witness stand and she can't remember was it Thursday or Wednesday, it's automatically discredited."

"And so, when you're in the midst of trauma, something—terrible things happening to you—you may not remember the exact time," she said. "So if you can't believe the day and the time or la-la-la, everybody is look, well, guess it never happened."

On the Daily Show episode, Winfrey also talked about her new series on mental health for Apple TV+ in which she is partnering with Prince Harry, as well as her new book The Path Made Clear.