Winfrey set to open $40 million academy

HENLY-ON-KLIP, South Africa, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Oprah Winfrey is set to open a new academy for girls in South Africa, and fielding questions about its $40 million price tag by saying the kids deserve it.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henly-on-Klip, about 40 miles outside Johannesburg, is made up of 28 buildings situated on what Newsweek called "22 lush acres." It features large rooms, 200-thread-count sheets, a yoga studio, a beauty salon, theaters and hundreds of original tribal art objects.

Winfrey has been working on the school for five years. At one point the South African government planned to build the school with the TV talk show icon, but pulled out over criticism that the school would be elitist.

Winfrey told Newsweek girls in South Africa "deserve to be surrounded by beauty, and beauty does inspire."

"I wanted this to be a place of honor for them because these girls have never been treated with kindness," she said. "They've never been told they are pretty or have wonderful dimples. I wanted to hear those things as a child."

Winfrey also said she built the school because she became frustrated with writing "check after check to this or that charity without really feeling like it was a part of me."