India, July 31 -- Oprah Winfrey has denied widespread claims about her blocking a private road on her Maui estate to prevent residents from reaching higher ground at the time of a tsunami evacuation. The billionaire talk show host is the owner of a property on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Tsunami warnings were issued for the area in the wake of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake on the east coast of Russia, Fox News reported.

A spokesperson for Winfrey has stated that the claims circulating online are not true at all.In a statement, the spokesperson said that they got in touch with the local law enforcement as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to make sure the road was opened "as soon as we heard the tsunami warnings." "An...