The secret behind Oprah Winfrey’s powerful Golden Globes speech

What made Oprah Winfrey’s iconic 2018 Golden Globes speech so rousing isn’t what you think.

“I must have been more nervous than I thought, because I’ve never had dry mouth before,” Winfrey, 64, told People in an interview released Friday. “In the middle of the speech I thought, ‘I can’t move my gums.’”

But it turns out Winfrey’s nervousness — and the subsequent dry mouth her jitters caused — actually improved the delivery of herCecil B. DeMille Award acceptance speech.

“I started to articulate because I was trying to get over my gums!” she said.

Winfrey’s speech, which touched on racial politics in Hollywood and the sexual misconduct scandals leading to the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements, was so powerful that it led to rumors of a presidential run — rumors that, much to the chagrin of fans everywhere, she has since repeatedly denied.