Oprah Winfrey: Big Reveal is Long-Lost Sister
By Jawn Murray on Jan 24th 2011 9:15AM
Last Thursday, Oprah Winfrey told viewers on her syndicated talk show that she would have a big reunion on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show‘ on Monday.
Though she didn’t disclose with whom, the talk show titan shared that it involved something she’s learned about recently and is only known to her closest friends.
“I thought I’d seen it all. But this, my friends, is the miracle of all miracles,” Winfrey said in show commercials.
Having performed numerous family reunions on her talk show over the years, Winfrey stressed the impact of her own family reunion by having the word “miracle” appear on screen.
“I was given some news that literally shook me to my core. This time, I’m the one being reunited,” she shared. “I was keeping a family secret for months, and on Monday you’re going to hear it straight from me.”
BlackVoices.com has learned that Winfrey’s big announcement is that sometime around Thanksgiving of last year, she discovered she had a half-sister she never knew about.
The 56-year-old television mogul had believed for years that she was her parent’s last living child – younger siblings Jeffrey and Patricia are both deceased.
Winfrey learned that her mother, Vernita Lee, had another daughter who, oddly enough, is also named Patricia. Sources tell BlackVoices.com that the two have already met in person, and Winfrey’s talk show reveal is only to introduce her sister to the world.
At press time, details were sketchy as to why Winfrey was unaware of her sister’s existence until now. One source tells BlackVoices.com that Patricia was raised by another family and that either her mother Vernita “adored the name Patricia so much she named two children that” or her sister’s adopted family named her that coincidentally.
Born in Kosciusko, Miss., to her unmarried teenage parents, Vernon Winfrey and Vernita Lee, Winfrey was raised at various points in her life by a grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee; her parents; and even a stepmother according to biographies on her.
In a December interview for an ABC special with Barbara Walters, Winfrey acknowledged that she provides for both of parents monetarily.
When asked about her relationship with her parents, she confessed she isn’t extremely close to them.
“I would not say that I have been the kind of daughter that calls home every week and is checking in with my parents,” she told Walters. “I wouldn’t say that we’re terribly close.”
Winfrey, who launched her own television network called OWN on Jan. 1, went on to say that things with her and her father were “fine,” though she struggled to find words to describe her relationship with her mother.
Ultimately, Winfrey would declare during that interview that her best friend Gayle King was “the mother I never had.”
Winfrey will formally make the announcement about Patricia on her talk show at 9 a.m. CST, which is when her show airs live in Chicago.
