Oprah Winfrey's baby tears

Jan 22, 2007, 12:30 GMT

Oprah REUTERS/Keith Bedford

Oprah Winfrey cried for three days after her half-sister revealed the chat show host had a baby when she was just 14.

The TV presenter does not name her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, in the February issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, but writes of the betrayal she felt when "a relative" sold the story to US gossip magazine The National Enquirer.

Oprah said: "She sat in a room, told them the story of my hidden shame and left their offices $19,000 richer.

"I took to my bed and cried for three days. I felt devastated, wounded, betrayed. How could this person do this to me?"

The chat show host - who, following the revelation in 1990, told Parade magazine that year her baby had been born prematurely and died weeks later in hospital - said the secret proved to be much less shameful than she imagined.

She said: "Only my family and closest friends knew. I would tell no one until I felt safe enough to share my dark past - the years I was sexually abused, from age 10 to 14, my resulting promiscuity as a teenager, and finally, at 14, my becoming pregnant.

"I imagined that every person on the street was going to point their finger at me and scream, 'Pregnant at 14, you wicked girl!'

"But no one said a word. Not strangers, not even people I knew. I was shocked. Nobody treated me differently. For 20 years, I had been expecting a reaction that never came.

"And I soon realised that having the secret out was liberating. What I learned for sure was that holding the shame was the greatest burden of all."

Oprah writes about the experience in her column under the title 'My First Betrayal' as the theme for the latest issue of her magazine is 'My First...'.

(C) BANG Media International