Oprah Winfrey says in the February issue of her magazine that she cried for three days when a relative told the National Enquirer that Winfrey became pregnant at 14 and lost the baby after birth.
Winfrey already had confirmed the Enquirer’s 1990 report that she got pregnant as a teenager, telling Parade magazine later that year that the baby was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, sold the story to the tabloid, according to news reports at the time.
Winfrey, who did not name Lloyd in her column, wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine that the relative “sat in a room, told them the story of my hidden shame and left their offices $19,000 richer.”
“I felt devastated. Wounded. Betrayed. How could this person do this to me?” she wrote.
Winfrey now says she learned something from what she calls “that first betrayal.” Having the secret out was “liberating” and it allowed her to begin to heal from the sexual abuse she said she experienced as a girl.
She says she hasn’t let more recent betrayals in her life bother her as much, although they still feel like “a kick in the gut.”
A Happier Oprah, Opening Her School For Girls
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