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Oprah Winfrey raises $600k with yard sale

Los Angeles - Oprah Winfrey raised $600 000 (R6.1m) for charity by hosting a giant yard sale on Saturday.

The talk show host offloaded hundreds of her personal belongings, including a set of six 18th-century Louis XVI armchairs with hand-embroidered details, which sold for $60 000, online and at a live auction at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club in California.

Many of the items, sold to raise funds for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation College Fund that is dedicated to helping graduates of her school in South Africa attend colleges and universities around the world, went for much high prices than they were worth simply because many of her fans were desperate to own something from Oprah's homes in Hawaii, Indiana and California, according to the Los Angeles Times.

'I'm trying not to be attached to things'

An enlarged print of a TV Guide photo of the presenter sold for $3 000, a teapot fetched $100 and two long velvet sofas sold for $8 750.

The 59-year-old star said before shortly before the sale: "It's just too much stuff. I talk about it a lot in ['O'] the magazine. We talk about decluttering. And I realised, I need to declutter my own life. It is very freeing. I am downsizing."

She added: "I'm trying not to be attached to things. I'm trying to live the life that I talk about, like not letting things define you. But it's hard."

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