Oprah voted top celebrity role model

Oprah Winfrey edged Michael J. Fox as the best celebrity role model of 2006 while Britney Spears outdistanced Paris Hilton as the worst in an AP-AOL News poll.

Winfrey, the entertainment mogul who contributed $40 million toward the establishment of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, was selected by 29% of the people surveyed. Fox finished second with 23%.

When asked to choose from a list of names, 29% of those surveyed bestowed the honor of worst celebrity of the year on Spears.

The 25-year-old pop singer and mother of two young sons recently filed for divorce from Kevin Federline, her husband of two years. She then followed with highly publicized nights out with party girls Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, including photographic evidence of Spears wearing no underpants, which raised questions about her fitness as a parent.

Second-worst celebrity billing went to Hilton, with 18%. Mel Gibson was third-worst celebrity with 12%.

The telephone poll of 1,004 adults was conducted Dec. 19-21 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.