Oprah Winfrey admits near nervous breakdown

Monday, September 23, 2013

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey speaks about her trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp and the importance of Holocaust education to help combat genocide during an address Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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NEW YORK (WABC) -- Oprah Winfrey is opening up about a recent struggle after suffering from a near nervous breakdown last year.

During an interview with Access Hollywood, Winfrey said the breakdown happened during the difficulties launching her TV network OWN, while she was also shooting the movie "The Butler."

She says her epiphany came when she interviewed "Kony 2012" director Jason Russell about his mental breakdown and realized she could relate to several of his symptoms.

Winfrey says she knew she had to act to change her situation.

"It was just sort of speeding and a kind of numbness and going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing," she said. "I thought 'If I don't calm down, I'm going to be in serious trouble.'"

At the time, Oprah was struggling to save a failing network jetsetting across the country, interviewing A-list celebrities and filming her leading role in "The Butler," a role she told ABC's Good Morning America that she couldn't turn down.

"At the time, I was trying to build a team and restructure and, you know, execute the vision and all that," she said, "And I said yes, though, because of the story."