Oprah Surprises Student with New iPhone After Poking Fun at His Cracked Screen

By Mike Peterson
2 Min Read
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Oprah Winfrey is well-known for giving gifts. But one student from Morehouse College in Atlanta was able to experience that reputation first-hand.

It all started last month after Oprah surprised Morehouse College with a $13 million donation, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When she was visiting the Atlanta university, student Olufemi Yessoufou flagged her down and asked to take a selfie with her.

Yessoufou and his friend recorded a short clip with Oprah, who actually poked fun at the student’s device — which apparently had a broken screen.

“Hey. That’s me,” Oprah said in the clip. “That’s me in your cracked phone.”

The short video, which Yessoufou posted to Twitter on Oct. 7 with the caption “she played me,” quickly went viral. It’s racked up more than 10,000 retweets and 70,000 likes since it was posted.

That would have been the end of the story if Winfrey didn’t decide to send the college freshman a brand new device. He received the new iPhone 11 Pro in the mail later that month, with a note dated Oct. 17.

“Dear Olufemi, we can’t have you out here viewing the world thru a cracked screen or a cracked cover,” the note read. “The new camera you’re gonna love for sure!”

Yessoufou thanked the television mogul on Twitter just a few days ago, again racking up tens of thousands of likes and retweets.

Just a few days ago, a larger group of Morehouse Students took to Instagram to thank Oprah again for the gift.

But they also announced a new initiative that they had developed, Adopt A House, which encourages corporations or individuals to invest in Morehouse to sponsor renovations and retrofits — and which Oprah had lauded and helped guide to fruition.

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For starters, we would like to thank Ms. Oprah Winfrey and her team for her generosity in both her gift to the Oprah Winfrey Scholars program and her gift to our brother Olufemi Yessoufou. Yes, she replaced his broken cell phone! Given this platform, we would like to introduce a project we, brothers of Morehouse, have been working on. It’s called Adopt A House. This is an idea we came up with to gain support from corporations and/ individuals to “adopt” their own piece of Morehouse by investing in the renovation and retrofitting process for on-campus facilities. All jokes aside, we are grateful for the day we were blessed with the opportunity to have that genuine conversation with Ms. Winfrey regarding our initiative. What you saw was her willingness to engage and have genuine fun and playful banter with us. What wasn’t seen was her sincere love for Morehouse’s mission and her Interest in our Adopt A House plan. Following our conversation, Ms. Winfrey lauded our plan and helped guide us to the next steps we need to follow as we aim to bring our plans to fruition. Again thank you so much, Ms. Oprah Winfrey, we genuinely appreciate your kindness and support! @oprah @oprahmagazine @morehouse1867 #morehouse

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“Thank you, Ms. Winfrey,” the group of students said in the clip. “A gift to one of our brothers is a gift to all of our brothers.”

Oprah, for her part, has teamed up with Apple for a “multi-year content partnership.” In addition to several upcoming projects for Apple TV+, Oprah and Apple also announced a new global book club through the Apple Books and Apple TV platforms.

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