Oprah Car Giveaway Audience Member Says it Changed Her Life

"You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!"

It's one of the most memorable moments ever on Oprah: the day the talk show titan gave everyone in her audience a brand new car!  

Oprah handed out 276 Pontiac G6s, worth $28,000 each.

"During that moment I was just overwhelmed," says Kiley Russell of Chicago, who was lucky enough to be in the audience that day.

"My heart was beating like 50 miles an hour and [I] just could not believe I had won a car," she remembers.

For Russell, an assistant principal, that new car meant a new beginning that changed her life forever.  

"Winning that car was pivotal for me," Russell says.

Russell kept the car for a week and then sold it for $19,000 and used the money to start a cosmetics and skincare line.

"I had been making body butters and soaps and I thought, 'Wow, people really like this, I wonder if this could really be a business, if this could work.' "

She even opened a salon, Big Girl Makeup Bar & Spa. Although the Oprah car is long gone, she still keeps a memento from that amazing day.

"This is the key that Oprah gave us; it represents the seed that started my company. It all started with this," Russell tells INSIDE EDITION.