Marianne Deborah Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is an American self-help author, speaker, and political activist. She began her professional career as a spiritual leader of the Church of Today, a Unity Church in Warren, Michigan. Williamson has written several self-help books, including A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles in 1992, which became a New York Times Best Seller. She rose to prominence through frequent appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show, and becoming known as her "spiritual advisor".
Williamson ran unsuccessfully as an independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives in 2014, finishing fourth with 13.2% of the vote. She ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, eventually dropping out and endorsing Bernie Sanders. She ran for president again in 2024, challenging incumbent President Joe Biden. After having suspended and restarted her campaign, Williamson ended her longshot White House bid in July 2024. She unsuccessfully campaigned for the position of DNC chair in 2025.
Williamson has been actively involved with charity work, founding such organizations as Center for Living in 1987, Project Angel Food in 1989, and the Peace Alliance in 1998. Allegations of abusive and bullying behavior toward both colleagues and staff have followed her throughout her career.
Early life and education Marianne Deborah Williamson was born in Houston, Texas, on July 8, 1952. She is the youngest of three children of Samuel "Sam" Williamson, a World War II veteran and immigration lawyer, and Sophie Ann Kaplan, a homemaker and community volunteer.
Williamson was raised in an upper-middle-class family that practiced Conservative Judaism. Her family attended Congregation Beth Yeshurun. She learned about world religions and social justice at home and became interested in public advocacy when she saw her rabbi speak against the Vietnam War.
In 1965, after Williamson came home from school in the seventh grade, she recounted to her parents that her teacher supported the Vietnam War. Her father reacted by taking the family to Vietnam to help explain to Marianne why he thought that the war was wrong. She has said that through travel she "had an experience, at a young age, that people are the same everywhere."
Williamson attended Houston ISD's Bellaire High School."Meet the Class of 2020's Overachievers," New York, April 1–14, 2019, p. 13 After graduating, she spent two years studying theater and philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a roommate of future film producer Lynda Obst. In 1973, Williamson dropped out of college and lived "a nomadic existence" during what she calls "her wasted decade".
Williamson moved to New Mexico, where she took classes at the University of New Mexico. The couple broke up a year later. Marianne then moved to Austin, Texas, where she took classes at the University of Texas. After leaving Texas, she went to New York City, intending to pursue a career as a cabaret singer; however, she has stated that she was distracted by "bad boys and good dope". Vanity Fair wrote that Williamson "spent her twenties in a growing state of existential despair." In New York, Williamson suffered from deep depression following the end of a relationship. She has said that this experience gave rise to a desire to spend the rest of her life helping people. Allegations of abusive behavior toward colleagues and staff have followed her throughout her career.
A Course in Miracles Although initially uninterested due to her Jewish faith, Williamson developed an interest in Helen Schucman's book A Course in Miracles in 1976. She explored spirituality, metaphysics, and meditation as she began reading the Course "passionately". She also reconciled the Course with her Jewishness; in her view, "A conversion to Christ is not a conversion to Christianity. It is a conversion to a conviction of the heart".
Williamson said the book was her "path out of hell", as she had been "mired in a series of unhappy love affairs, alcohol and drug abuse, a nervous breakdown, and endless sessions with therapists." The Course has often been described as a religion or pseudoreligion. Williamson disagrees, describing it as a "spiritual psychotherapy" instead of a religion.
Career In 1979, Williamson returned to Houston, where she ran a metaphysical bookstore coffee shop, sang Gershwin standards in a nightclub, got married and divorced "almost immediately", and underwent a "spiritual surrender".
In 1983, Williamson had what she has called a "flash" to close the coffee shop and move to Los Angeles. She rented an apartment in Hollywood, where her roommate was 17-year-old Laura Dern. Dern has stated that Williamson "held prayer groups in our living room."
Williamson's teachings stemmed from an inspirational message: "Divine love is the core and essence of every human mind." She saw this message as a remedy to misinterpretations of the Bible that, through an emphasis on sin and guilt, could lead to harm (e.g., slavery, depression, self-loathing).
As word spread about "the young woman talking about a God who loves you, no matter what," she had to rent church space to accommodate the demand to hear her speak. In 1987, she began lecturing monthly in New York. Eventually, she was invited to speak throughout the U.S. and Europe. Williamson did not charge for her lectures but had a "suggested donation" of $7 and a policy of not turning people away for lack of money. Williamson's style has been described as a "trendy amalgam of Christianity, Buddhism, pop psychology and 12-step recovery wisdom".
Unity Church Williamson became the spiritual leader for the Church of Today, a Unity Church in Warren, Michigan, where she had 2,300 congregants and 50,000 television viewers. Her position also included administrative leadership; her actions as leader included booking Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, expanding the bookstore, and increasing the congregation's racial and sexual orientation diversity. As a result, the Church grew rapidly.Multiple sources:
Author
Williamson has written 17 books . Seven have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, with four reaching number one.Multiple sources: She has sold more than three million books.
Williamson's most popular self-help work is A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (1992). The book appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for 39 weeks in the "Advice, How To and Miscellaneous" category; it teaches that practicing love every day will bring more peace and fulfillment to one's life. The following quotation is the most famous quotation from the book (it is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela):Oprah Winfrey said of the book, "I have never been more moved by a book than I am by this one." Winfrey bought 1,000 copies and encouraged her audience to purchase it, telling them that after reading it, she experienced 157 miracles. Williamson was a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and became Oprah's spiritual advisor.
Political campaigns 2014 U.S. House of Representatives campaign
In 2014, Williamson ran as an Independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Prominent elected and public officials endorsed her campaign, including Ben Cohen; former governors Jennifer Granholm and Jesse Ventura; former representatives Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson; and Van Jones. Alanis Morissette wrote and performed Williamson's campaign song, "Today".
Williamson campaigned on progressive issues such as campaign finance reform, women's reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality. She raised $2.4 million, of which she personally contributed 25 percent.
Williamson finished fourth out of 18 candidates, with 14,335 votes or 13.2 percent of the vote. Republican Elan Carr finished first in the primary with 21.6 percent of the vote, but went on to lose the general election to Democrat Ted Lieu.
2020 presidential campaign
On November 15, 2018, Williamson announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee. On January 28, 2019, Williamson officially launched her presidential campaign before an audience of 2,000 people in Los Angeles. Williamson's campaign committee, "Marianne Williamson for President", officially filed on February 4.
As of May 1, Williamson had a campaign staff of 20. A week later, she announced she had received enough contributions from unique donors to enter the official primary debates. Her campaign had raised $1.5 million (~$ in ) in the first quarter of 2019, during which it received donations from 46,663 unique individuals. Williamson subsequently met the polling criteria, with three unique polls at one percent from qualifying pollsters, on May 23.
In June, Williamson confirmed that she had moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in advance of the 2020 caucuses. In response to the Iowa Democratic Party's proposed creation of "virtual caucuses" in the 2020 race, Williamson's campaign announced it would appoint 99 "Virtual Iowa Caucus Captains" (each assigned to a single county) to turn out supporters in both the virtual and in-person caucuses.
Later that month, Williamson participated in the first primary debate. The LA Times wrote that Democratic voters were "confused" and "transfixed" by Williamson, who declared that her first act as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, "Girlfriend, you are so on", a reference to Ardern's emphasis on building a country that treats its children well. Williamson also received media attention for her closing remarks:In the closing moments of Thursday night’s Democratic debate, Marianne Williamson looked straight ahead and told the audience that her plan for her candidacy is to harness the country’s love. “Mr. President, if you’re listening,” she said, addressing Donald Trump directly, “you have harnessed fear for political purposes, and only love can cast that out. I am going to harness love for political purposes,” she continued, raising her eyebrows. “And sir, love will win.”
On July 30, Williamson participated in the second primary debate. She was the most Googled candidate in 49 of 50 states and received the fourth-most attention on X, then known as Twitter. The spike in searches was prompted by her reference to the Flint water crisis and her assertion that President Trump was harnessing a "dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred," which she later described as racism, bigotry, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia propelled by social media.
On the day of the third DNC debate, for which she did not qualify, Williamson did an interview with Eric Bolling and expressed further frustration with the media when she thought she was not being recorded. Among her unscripted comments was "what does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?"
On January 10, 2020, Williamson announced the end of her campaign and pledged to support the Democratic nominee.
Many pundits treated Williamson's brief campaign as comic relief, often characterizing her as a novelty candidate due to her unconventional approach and spiritual rhetoric. However, some found her message persuasive and influential. After the July 30, 2019, Democratic debate, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote, "It feels insane to say this, but Williamson out-debated virtually everyone else on the stage. She gave a compelling answer on reparations and returned again and again to the most important issue for Democratic voters, beating Trump."
2024 presidential campaign
Williamson began "working on putting a machine together" to run for president in 2024, visiting South Carolina and New Hampshire in early 2023. On February 23, 2023, she confirmed that she would launch a run for president in the future. She started her 2024 campaign on March 4, 2023.