People prefer to hide their complicated past. Oprah Winfrey did the same and had not opened up about her daunting past until her half-sister disclosed it to the world. The TV mogul was devastated by her family member’s betrayal.

Television host Oprah Winfrey is a self-made billionaire with no children, but she has young females from her Academy whom she considers her “daughters.”

Here are the details about the iconic daytime TV star’s painful past, her view on having kids, and her “daughters,” who she said have enabled her to fulfill her maternal duties.

While her life has not always been easy, she has ensured that she has a giving spirit and tries to do as much as she can for those less fortunate than she.

WINFREY’S PREGNANCY AND HER MOTHER’S DECISION
Winfrey fell pregnant at age fourteen and hid the pregnancy for seven months until the child was born. She shared in her “Life Class” program for OWN that she saved the unborn baby because she felt detached:

“I saved that baby because I was so disassociated and still do feel such a disassociation. I never felt like it was my baby.”

Winfrey admitted hiding the pregnancy brought her nothing but shame and that having swollen ankles and a big belly made it evident that she was expecting:

“I was so ashamed. I hid the pregnancy until my swollen ankles and belly gave me away.”

“Hiding that secret and carrying that shame blocked me in so many ways that I remember being taken to the detention home when my mother was going to put me out of the house at the age of 14,” Winfrey continued.

She talked about the overall ordeal and how it made her feel at the time and said: “The experience was the most emotional, confusing, traumatic of my young life.”

Winfrey further explained that being taken to the detention home and waiting to be processed while there, she remembered how relatives abused her from age nine.

The media mogul disclosed that she had been sexually abused at nine and ten years old, and was molested for all of those years, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy.

Winfrey said, looking around the detention home at all of those girls who had been placed there for being “bad girls,” she remembered having a moment thinking, “now I am officially a bad girl.”

She thought to herself: “I’m now for the rest of my life going to be called a ‘bad girl,’ because I’m going to be put in this place.” She sat there waiting to be processed and said to herself that she did not belong there:

“I don’t even know how this happened to me that I’m in a place for bad girls because I didn’t feel like I was a bad girl.”

Luckily for her, as she sat there thinking, a woman came out and said to her and her mother, Vernita Lee, who died in November 2018, that there was no space for her there and they would have to come back in two weeks.

Young Winfrey and her mom had to leave, and she was released to go and live with her father. According to her, that was her saving grace.

SAVING GRACE AND NEW CHANCE
After dodging a bullet from being placed in the detention home, the Mississippi native felt like she had a second chance in life, saying:

“From that moment forward, I felt like I had been somehow saved, that somebody up there recognized that I wasn’t a bad girl.”

“And here I was given another chance, and after I gave birth, at 14 years old to a child who I never even knew how this even happened to me at the time,” Winfrey continued.

She revealed what her father said to her when her baby died at the hospital (born prematurely), giving her a sense of hope after her traumatic experience.

“When that child died, my father said to me, ‘This is your second chance. This is your opportunity to cease this moment and make something of your life,’” the 69-year-old revealed.

After hearing her dad’s words, Winfrey had an epiphany at that moment even though she could not articulate it into words saying, “I took that chance and understood for myself, that now I know better so I can do better.”

WINFREY’S SECRET REVEALED TO THE WORLD

Later, the author shared that she had hoped her secret would remain hidden until she could entirely deal with her own deep emotions and feelings.

Winfrey expressed distress after learning that a publication had paid her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, for the story. She described Llyod as a “drug-dependent, deeply disturbed individual.”

After her pregnancy, the TV personality feared they would expel her from school for being debauched. A few years down the line, she worried that it would damage her thriving career and said:

“I carried the secret into my future, always afraid that if anyone discovered what had happened, they, too, would expel me from their lives.”