CHICAGO (AP) — Oprah Winfrey says she recently learned she has a half-sister she never knew about.
Winfrey made the announcement on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ that aired Monday morning. She says she has a sister who lives in Milwaukee.
Oprah Winfrey’s announcement that she would stage a surprise reunion on her talk show had prompted major media buzz.
Winfrey, 57, and various biographies say she was born to unmarried teenagers Vernon Winfrey and Vernita Lee, and raised at different times by a grandmother, her mother, and her father and stepmother in Mississippi, Wisconsin and Tennessee. Two Winfrey siblings, a brother and sister, both have died.
“I was given some news that literally shook me to my core. This time, I’m the one being reunited,” she said before the announcement. “I was keeping a family secret for months, and on Monday you’re going to hear it straight from me.”
Winfrey has shared painful and private elements of her life before, willingly or not. Her revelation that she had given birth as a teenager to a son who died shortly afterward came after a relative sold the story to a tabloid in 1990. Winfrey has also discussed her childhood molestation.
The Chicago-based syndicated “Oprah Winfrey Show” is in its 25th and final season. The Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, launched in January.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Monday, January 24th 2011 at 12:03PM
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