Winfrey has assured fans that she opened up her private road in Hawaii "as soon as" she heard the tsunami warnings.

If you were to believe some posts on social media, the billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey — who lives in Maui part-time — was accused of callously refusing to let evacuees use her private road to shorten their travel time. But it's typically a bad idea to believe what you see on social media.

Oprah Winfrey has come under fire again, despite refuting a viral social-media rumor that she kept a private road closed during tsunami evacuation efforts in Hawaii. What began as a logistic concern has since evolved into a broader discussion about non-Indigenous billionaire land ownership on the islands.