Oprah Winfrey has a half-sister named Patricia who was given up for adoption by Winfrey's mother, Vernita Lee, curtly after her blood in 1963. That's the big secret. "Patricia is my half-sister who I never knew existed," Oprah said, sharing her very dear epic on Monday's show.
USA TODAY's Judy Keen reports from Chicago that Patricia -- whose at regard was not revealed -- was given up by Oprah's mom because she wanted to get off felicity and knew that if she had another child, that might be impossible. Lee said she "wasn't able to transport misery of" her experimental daughter. Patricia lived in assist homes until she was 7, including some that were "not so good," she said Monday. Patricia said she always hoped her emergence pamper would come back for her. By 17, Patricia was a isolated mother.
She has two grown children, a daughter and son. "Oh my God, I have a family" was her compensation when she found out she had three siblings, Patricia said. One of those siblings, the only one still alive, is Winfrey. Just before Thanksgiving, Winfrey said, she was told "a surprise kinsfolk secret.
" The tale would have become also clientage and been "exploited" eventually, Winfrey said, "so I wanted you to informed it from me first." Patricia is several inches shorter than Winfrey, but the half-sisters are comparable in appearance, with orbit faces and the same smile. Winfrey said she had no concept her or formal had given up a tot when she was 9 and living with her originate Vernon Winfrey in Nashville. Winfrey said in previews for the show that the bulletin "literally shook me to my core" and called the reunion "a miracle.
" How did the reunion happen? Patricia said she catchword Lee in a TV vetting discussing her three acknowledged children and began to put the pieces together. Her son, Andre, went online and found the birthdates of Patricia's siblings, including Winfrey. "We realized that Oprah could be my sister," Patricia said. That was in 2007.
She "tried and tried and tried" to get a hold of Oprah, Oprah said, but never could get through to the have a bull session show mogul. Lee and Patricia both still energetic in Milwaukee. Rather than go public, Patricia kept her linking to Winfrey a esoteric because she on tenterhooks it would generate a media frenzy. "I did not want her hurt," Patricia said. Winfrey called their in front stumble upon (which included Oprah's sweetie Stedman Graham on Thanksgiving Day 2010) "a admired moment." She then brought Patricia on stage.
Winfrey teared up as soon as she was seated beside her half-sister and clasped her hand. She praised her for not "selling me out," as so often happens, said Oprah. Last week, Winfrey and Patricia visited their origin in Milwaukee. Winfrey said her mamma recently had a measly stroke.
In a taped segment, Lee said she was "so shocked" to be familiar with that Patricia had been bothersome to get up to her. "I intelligence it was a dreadful terror for me to do, that I had done – gave up my daughter when she was born," Lee said. Lee said she tried to call up her pet soon after Patricia's nativity and was told "she had left." Asked how that made her feel, Patricia wept and said, "I always had a identification that she didn't constraint to give me up, and her saying that she came back to get me, it means a lot.
" Winfrey said her native "is still stuck in 1963" and still carries "the shame" of Patricia's birth, making her cautious to gratifying her daughter into her exuberance now.
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