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TagsBY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
This past Monday on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Winfrey introduced a very special guest, a woman she identified only as Patricia. Oprah recently learned that Patricia happened to be her half-sister.
Patricia had been kept a secret by Oprah's mother who put her up for adoption at birth.
Winfrey said she chose to make the announcement herself so the media would not exploit it. Patricia spoke about being put up for adoption at birth, spent time in foster care and longed to be reunited with her foster mother.
Patricia's years-long search for her family culminated in a meeting with Winfrey this past Thanksgiving Day. CBS News reports Winfrey told her audience that when Patricia was born in 1963, Winfrey was 8 years old and living with her father. She did not even know her mother was pregnant.
Patricia, whose last name was not revealed, said she had been raised in foster homes since age 7. Patricia said she first learned she was Winfrey's half sister in 2007, but kept it a secret because she knew it would create a media storm.
By 17 she was a single mother, Patricia said, and six years later she had another child. When she was 20, she sought out information about her birth mother and then let it go until years later, Patricia said.
According to CNN, the agency contacted Patricia in 2007 with the news that her birth mother did not want to meet her on the same day she saw a local news story that had an interview with Oprah's mother which gave her information that matched up with what Patricia knew about her birth family.
Patricia tracked down Winfrey's niece who is the daughter of Oprah's other half-sister. The pair did a DNA test and it was revealed that they were indeed aunt and niece. That started the ball rolling with family members reaching out to Winfrey who eventually confirmed with her mother that the story was true.
"She never once thought to go to the press," Winfrey said. "She never once thought to sell this story."
Winfrey shared with the audience home video of her first meeting with her sister when Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham drove to Milwaukee to finally meet her.
The pair sat down with their mother, Vernita Lee, and Oprah asked about her feelings learning about and being reunited with Patricia.
"I was so shocked to know that she was trying to get in touch with me," Lee said. "When I first heard about her, I wasn't afraid but I was a little leery."
Reuters reports that Oprah Winfrey scored her best ratings in nearly six years with Monday's show revealing her sister.
The show averaged a 9.6 household rating (according to metered market weighted averages). That's the highest episode since Winfrey's post-Oscar party installment on February 28, 2005. More video from the show is found at oprah.com.
