Oprah Winfrey said the recent alleged abuse scandal at her $47 million Leadership Academy in South Africa “has been one of the most devastating, if not the most devastating, experience of my life.

“When I first heard about it I spent about a half-hour going around my house crying,” Winfrey, 53 — who was abused as a child — said in a video news conference from Chicago Monday.

Though she said she was not responsible for school hiring, she admitted the screening process was inadequate and “the buck always stops with me.”

The same day, the former employee accused of alleged sexual and physical abuse appeared in a South African court.

Virginia “Tiny” Makopo – who worked as a caregiver at Winfrey’s $47 million Leadership Academy in South Africa – was not required to enter a plea at Monday’s hearing, but said she was innocent when the charges — which include 13 counts of assault and criminal injury committed against at least six students aged 13-15 and a 23-year-old at the school — were read, the Associated Press reports.

Makopo was released on $450 bail. She is due back in court December 13.

Mokopo was ordered to report weekly to the police station in Sebokeng, a township south of Johanessburg. She was also banned from having any contact with staff or students at Winfrey’s school.

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