Al Roker’s birthday is on Tuesday and on his 70th birthday he gets some wise advice from an old friend: Oprah Winfrey.
During a filmed conversation for the “Today” show, the legendary TV duo chatted about the big 7-0 victory over a tequila-Aperol-grapefruit drink at the NBC network’s New York headquarters.
“I was excited to hit 70,” Winfrey, who also celebrated the same milestone this year, told Roker. “I look forward to every number because I remember many years ago as a young girl I always thought I would never reach my 60s or 70s.”
She continued, “I feel like I know there’s not that much time left, and I’ve made my peace with that knowledge. I feel an urgency to live well, to live as strongly as I can.”
The former host of the “Oprah Winfrey Show” also told Roker that she “probably wouldn’t be here” if she had stayed in the conditions she grew up in as a girl in Milwaukee, where she lived on welfare with her late mother, Vernita Lee.
The couple also spoke about their health struggles and the joy of turning 70. Winfrey told Roker, “The amazing thing is that your heart pumped nonstop for you for 69 years and you lived to almost 70. And it did it at exactly the right time, just for you.”
Roker returned to “Today” in January last year after briefly taking a break from the morning show due to health issues. Earlier this summer, Winfrey had to miss an interview with author David Wroblewski on “CBS Mornings” in June due to gastroenteritis, a stomach virus.
Oprah Winfrey is recovering after a visit to the emergency room for gastrointestinal inflammation
“I feel like I don’t have that much time left, and I’ve made my peace with that knowledge,” Winfrey told the weatherman. “I have a desperate need to live well, to live as strongly as I can.”
The two also talked about the benefits of getting older, with Roker adding, “As you get older, your personality becomes more apparent.”
“I have aged into a person who is wiser, who is certainly stronger, who is more alive and more alert and more aware than ever before,” Winfrey said, before Roker quipped, “70 is a number, but nothing to worry about?”
Contributors: Hannah Yasharoff, Edward Segarra
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Al Roker and Oprah talk about her 70th birthday and birthday advice
