Hollywood’s history is littered with iconic best-friend duos.
There’s Affleck and Damon, Stone and Lawrence, Pitt and Clooney, Fallon and Timberlake.
Then there’s Winfrey and Shriver Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver, that is.
“I would describe it as deep.
Want me to keep going?”
Winfrey added, “I’d say that there is a spiritual connection.”
Here’s a peek inside Maria Shriver’s close relationship with Oprah Winfrey.
“I first met her in the bathroom.
Oh my god, Maria’s gonna tell you the truth, no matter damn what.”
Shriver concurred, insisting that honesty is the foundation of their relationship.
“She does it right back,” Shriver revealed.
She was a Kennedy, after all; her mother, Eunice, was John F. Kennedy’s sister.
“I had to prove myself at every juncture.
I worked hard,” Shriver said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey forO, The Oprah Magazine.
I didn’t want to be the rich kid who was along for a free ride."
As a result, Winfrey recalled, she found her future best friend quite intimidating.
“I was a little afraid of you when you first came to WJZ-TV,” Winfrey confessed.
She elaborated, “You were such the talk!
Funny enough, Shriver was intimidated by Winfrey, too.
She would even fret about her career when they got meals together.
“To me, all that was big.”
“I was thrilled.”
Ultimately, it all worked out for the best.
Shriver started working at “CBS Morning News” in 1985.
Winfrey found herself surprised by just how competitive the family was.
“I thought, ‘God, I’m actually here on the lawn with all the Kennedy cousins.’
“I ran into a closet and closed the door because I’d already done three games enough!”
Still, that early visit wound up being a meaningful one to the future entertainment mogul.
She described using a bathroom at the Kennedy house and realizing the decor included framed letters from Nikita Khrushchev.
At that moment, Winfrey made a choice to let her guard down.
“So I made a decision,” she said.
“I’m just going to be myself.”
There had, after all, beensigns that Schwarzenegger and Shriver’s marriage wasn’t going to last.
“This is a painful and heartbreaking time,” Shriver wrote in a statement toABC Newson May 17.
That very evening, though, she had somewhere to be.
Onstage, Shriver sent her friend some love and sent her ex-husband some shade.
The crowd went wild, understanding “truth” to be a message to the former California governor.
In 2008, the two women linked up for their interview published inO, The Oprah Magazine.
It was in recognition of Shriver’s book “Just Who Will You Be?”
which contained reflections on her life and inspirational words for anyone trying to find their path.
“I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace.
The book, then, was about how untenable that path was.
“It has been a long road to becoming.
Think back to when you weren’t sure.
To when you spoke to God and asked him to guide you.
Becoming asks that you listen, not just to them, but to you,” Shriver recited.
When Winfrey took the stage to accept her award, she was reportedly very emotional.
She devoted part of her acceptance speech to talking about the importance of showing up for one another.
“How do you use your power to elevate the life of somebody else?
That’s what everyone in this room has been called to do.”
Winfrey’s drive to help others is what caught the eye of Sherry Lansing, the award’s namesake.
That is one of the most wonderful things anyone can do.”
“I couldn’t get my mother to talk about it,” Winfrey recalled (viaToday).
I was just trying to find out what are the possibilities of me having hot flashes or something.”
Instead, when Winfrey did find herself experiencing symptoms, she had no idea what was going on.
I thought I was going to die every night,” the talk show host admitted.
Shriver backed up her friend, reiterating the importance of talking about such things publicly.
“I had the opposite of that.”
Like Winfrey’s other best friend, Maria, too, spoke with her mother constantly.
The former First Lady of California recalled to Oprah.com, “I didn’t make a move without her.
Talking stuff through with her calmed me as nothing else could.”
It turned out to be Eunice.
No more time for vacation.
You and Maria could be putting together a fundraiser.'"
They didn’t ultimately do that, but Winfrey never forgot Eunice’s insistence that they try.
I don’t have a lot of friends," Winfrey said.
“Everybody knows Gayle.
There’s Gayle, there’s Maria, there’s Bob.
And that’s about it, you know?
I never really expanded that circle until recently.”
Shriver, too, is looking to expand her circle.
