Oprah Winfrey ended her famous talk show today by telling her viewers of 25 years that they were not saying goodbye.'I'll just say until we meet again,' the 57-year-old mogul said.
She hugged and kissed her long term partner Stedman Graham and shook hands with audience members before walking through the halls of Harpo Studios in Chicago, hugging and crying with her staff.
Winfrey shouted 'We did it!' as the last shot of the finale showed Winfrey walking away with her cocker spaniel, Sadie.
Earlier she had walked on stage to a standing ovation from her studio audience. She thanked the viewers for watching her for a quarter of a century.
'Twenty-five years and I'm still saying, "Thank you America,"' Winfrey said. 'Thank you so much. There are no words to match this moment.'
Heartfelt: Oprah was on stage alone for the duration of the show where she said that 'there are no words to match this moment'
The television host turned media titan told viewers that sometimes she was a teacher, but more often her viewers instructed her. She called the episode her 'last class.'
'I listened and grew and sometimes you grew along with me,' she said. 'I always wanted to be a teacher and I ended up in the world's biggest classroom. And this, my friends, will be the last class from this stage.'
Oprah, who is also known to treat audiences to shock surprises and giveaways on the long-running show, said that the final episode would be about thanking her dedicated audience.
'There will be no surprises - you will not be getting a car or a treat!...this is my love letter to you,' she said.The hour was a heartfelt recap of her long-standing talk show.
'4561 days of my life is what this show's about,' she said.
She also joked: 'You cheered me on though you occasionally complained about my outfits. My big hair, and earrings the size of napkins.
'I see know you had every reason to but at the time, you couldn't tell me nothing. I thought I was styling pretty good!'
She also told the audience she had never had a day off from the show.
'I never missed a day in 25 years because you were here,' she said.
Oprah showed clips of some of the bravest guests on the show, including AIDS victims, rape victims, alcoholic and drug addicts, as well as clips from The Colour Purple, which she starred in with Whoopi Goldberg in 1985.
She said: 'I've done the drive here thousands of times and today it was the last time so the drive was a little different.
Baltimore born Oprah, who had her first chat show at age 29, also heaped praise on her staff and team.
'I have the best team in TV,' she said. 'Not just because they're great at what they do, not just because they work 17 hour days - it's because we all here are aligned with a vision of service. So thank you for your love and your loyalty.'
The final Oprah Winfrey Show, which was taped in Chicago yesterday, opened with a clip from her first show.
Winfrey was the only person on stage with little background music and very short flashback clips were shown.
She wore a candy pink dress with scarves on the hip and with her hair loose,
The talk show which is produced by her own company started with just a handful of staff - she now has nearly.
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