Oprah’s Tragic Secret

Oprah Winfrey reveals in the February issue of O, The Oprah Magazine the tragedy of her stillborn baby and the betrayal of the family member who exposed it.

Winfrey writes that the relative, whom she doesn’t name but whom the Associated Press identifies as her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, “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?…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 … expelled! [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 realized that having the secret out was liberating. … What I learned for sure was that holding the shame was the greatest burden of all”