Oprah's Family Secret: A Half-Sister

by uInterviewJanuary 24, 2011, 12:00 amNews >

Oprah Winfrey shared an emotional surprise with her audience on Monday. The talk show host revealed that she has a half-sister, Patricia, whom her mother had given up for adoption when Winfrey was 7.

"It was one of the greatest surprises of my life," Winfrey said, of finding out about Patricia last October. "It left me speechless."

After searching for her birth mother from the age of 20 onwards, Patricia discovered her mother's identity while watching a TV news story about Vernita Lee, Winfrey's mother. The information in the news story matched details in Patricia's adoption records.

"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Patricia said. "I said, 'No, that can't be.'"

After several attempts to contact Lee, Patricia reached out to Winfrey's niece. The pair underwent a DNA test, which resulted in a match. Patricia finally met Lee on October 25, and the sisters met for the first time on Thanksgiving Day.

"It was a Beloved moment," Winfrey said, referencing the Toni Morrison novel in which a daughter comes back from the dead. —ISHITA SINGH

1 Comments

loganB on January 27, 2011 at 9:10 pm

While family may sometimes feel like the ties that bind, it's really no secret that family is a precious bond that too few individuals appreciate until it's too late. A newly discovered golden flower amidst the twists of the familial vine has a lot to do with Oprah's Winfrey's recently exposed “secret,” writes Pop Eater. On Monday's “The Oprah Show,” Oprah,56, discovered her secret to the world: she had a 48-year-old half-sister of whom she had never known until last year.

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