Vernon Winfrey, the father of Oprah Winfrey and former councilman, has died at the age of 89.

Vernon Winfrey Children: Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was born Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother. Her mother, Vernita Lee, was a housemaid. Her father, Vernon Winfrey, was a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who was in the Armed Forces at the time of her birth.

Her first name was actually spelled Orpah on her birth certificate, but people mispronounced it regularly and the name “Oprah” stuck.

Winfrey, during her childhood, starting from the age of nine, suffered sexual abuse at the hands of family members.

When she was 14, she became pregnant, but her son was born prematurely and died shortly after birth.

Winfrey has not been married. Since 1986, she and her boyfriend Stedman Graham have been together. Though they were engaged to be married in November 1992, the ceremony never took place.

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