Oprah Winfrey will reportedly produce the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic “Selma.” (Matt Sayles / Associated Press / August 12, 2013)
This is the first of a two-part world exclusive interview with Barbara Winfrey, the ex-wife of Oprah's father Vernon. In Part 2, to be published tomorrow, Mrs. Winfrey will reveal the shocking details of the big blowup between Oprah and her boyfriend Stedman Graham, the truth about her relationship with Gayle King and how she really feels about being in her own skin.
Barbara Winfrey can pinpoint exactly when her divorce turned more ugly than she had ever thought possible.
It was Friday 2 November 2012, her sixty-fourth birthday, and the day she received the telephone call that turned the implosion of her marriage into an 18-month legal battle with one of the most powerful celebrities on the planet – her stepdaughter, Oprah Winfrey.
Barbara listened as Oprah delivered her thunderous ultimatum: ‘You say I never talk to you?
I want to talk to you now. You have until Monday to get out of MY house.’
Earlier this month Barbara was finally served with an eviction notice. She has until 29 May to vacate the $1.4million house just south of Nashville that was home throughout her 14-year union to Oprah’s father, Vernon Winfrey.
Member of the wedding: Oprah didn't exactly embrace Barbara Winfrey when she became part of the family. But she certainly made a show of it in front of the camera, as she was wont to do, says Barbara in a world exclusive interview. Barbara married Oprah's father Vernon Winfrey in Nashville on June 17, 2000 and Oprah and Stedman Graham were front and center
Sad farewell: Barbara Winfrey has been evicted from the marital home in Franklin, Tennessee, she shared with Vernon for over a dozen years. When Oprah called Barbara on her birthday, Oprah told her 'You have until Monday to get out of MY house'
Now, Barbara is breaking her silence and speaking publicly for the first time about her devastation at what she regards as Oprah’s callous and calculated betrayal.
In an emotional and wide-ranging interview Barbara has given her account of the dispute, reveals the part Oprah played in ‘destroying’ her marriage, and gives an excoriating insight into the woman behind the global brand.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline she said, ‘I have lost everything. It’s not just a house, this is my home. All my memories are here.
‘I’m trying to keep it together but there are some days I just don’t understand how I could have made her so angry that she would kick me out on the street and think nothing about it. But that’s Oprah – she’s judge and jury.’
Evicted: Barbara was first ordered by the court to vacate her home by March 31. Oprah purchased the house in the name of her company, Overground Railroad LLC, the plaintiff in the case
A world away from the inspirational figure beloved by millions, the Oprah Barbara describes is manipulative and high-handed, treats family like staff and uses her wealth to control others.
She claims that Oprah, 60, and longterm partner Stedman Graham, 63, are not bound by romance but a pragmatic cocktail of shared secrets, convenience and money.
‘My crime, I think, was to talk to her like a normal person and she didn’t like that one bit'
- Barbara Winfrey
She describes Oprah’s relationship with close confidante Gayle King, 59, as ‘bizarre’ and ‘unhealthy,’ and points to it as the reason that neither woman is married.
And at the heart of it all, Barbara claims, the ‘real Oprah’ - hidden behind the image she projects so well – is a woman unhappy in her skin and, as Barbara has learned to her cost, unforgiving to those who inspire her wrath.
Barbara said, ‘You find out quickly where your place is with Oprah and you get in that place and you stay in that place.
‘My crime, I think, was to talk to her like a normal person and she didn’t like that one bit.’
Love-less: 'Love & Blessings' Oprah wrote on this photograph of her and Barbara taken at the superstar's 50th birthday party in Chicago in 2004. But Oprah hasn't shown her stepmother much love in words or deed over the years
Barbara was Vice Principal at Brentwood High School, a respected public school in Nashville, when she first met Vernon Winfrey.
Winfrey’s barber shop in a rundown area of East Nashville was a local landmark – it has been there for more than 50 years – and his work as a local councilman made him a well-known figure in the community.
Barbara recalled: ‘I used to send difficult students to his shop to work there at weekends, sweep floors that sort of thing, help them stay out of trouble.’
Fifteen years after first meeting him, they reconnected and the passing acquaintance became something more.
They married on 17 June 2000 in a ceremony at Nashville’s Hermitage Hotel. Looking back, Barbara admitted, ‘I don’t think Oprah really wanted to be there but she couldn’t not be at such a big event. How would that look?’
Barbara and Oprah’s first meeting some weeks earlier at the star’s Indiana farm had not been easy.
Video Souce Davidrush.net
Happy days: The red carpet wasn't exactly rolled out for Barbara and Vernon when they were invited to Oprah's Legends Ball. They were seat in a back corner of the second floor and were told not to mingle with the celebrities
Barbara said, ‘We drove from Nashville to Prairie, Indiana and when you pull up at her house it’s like pulling up to a castle. But that first night she didn’t have anything to say to us hardly at all. She wasn’t warm at all.’
The next morning Barbara got a taste of the sort of balance of power Oprah expected in their relationship.
She said, ‘Early the next morning she got on the intercom in her house – she has an intercom in all her houses - and she was calling, ”Barbara, Barbara come down, we’re going for a walk”.
'Some people can have money and be mentally rich – secure in what they have I guess. But others, how can I put it... some people you can’t take the ghetto out of'
‘Gayle was there and the way it worked she walked on one side, Oprah on the other and they peppered me with questions. I felt like I was being interrogated by the FBI. She had a large farm, about 125 acres. By the end of the walk I felt we’d covered the whole farm.’
Gayle did most of the talking that weekend. Oprah, according to Barbara, largely ignored her and her father – a pattern that would be repeated in visits and social occasions across the years.
Soon after their marriage, Vernon sold the house in which he had lived with his late wife and, thanks to Oprah, Barbara and Vernon got a place of their own.
Palatial: Despite the numerous rooms in Oprah's Santa Barbara mansion, Barbara says she and Vernon were never asked to stay overnight
Barbara said, ‘It was a new home so we got to choose every part of it. We signed so many documents, became part of the Housing Association. I was thankful of course. I never knew it was Oprah’s name on the deeds and that I was just on probation.’
Instead with each paper signed the misunderstanding was compounded. Barbara had no idea that her home was a gift never truly given.
Yet over the years she has come to understand that this is the dynamic on which Oprah’s empire is built.
She explained, ‘My husband once told me that just because someone gives you something does not mean they love you. He was talking about Oprah.
‘Her brand is that she’s a nice, caring, generous, giving person. That’s not how it is. She’s controlling – it’s all about control.
‘She has confidentiality agreements with pretty much everybody in her life. She has them sign their life away and she has them in her pocket.
Cutting it: Vernon Winfrey has been a barber in East Nashville for half a century. He is a well-respected member of the community
‘Everything comes with stipulations but she doesn’t tell you that and she doesn’t tell you what they are.’
According to Barbara, ‘Some people can have money and be mentally rich – secure in what they have I guess. But others, how can I put it…some people you can’t take the ghetto out of.
‘That’s Oprah, it’s who she is and where she’s from. She had money, everybody was going to know it and see it. But she had to be in control.’
It would be easy to be seduced by the riches of the world in which Oprah lives.
She has homes in Santa Barbara, Indiana, Hawaii, the Bahamas and Chicago, has owned various properties on Fisher Island, Fla and, until recently, had a home in Aspen.
She numbered an Aston Martin and Rolls Royce convertible among her many cars. The 2004 Mercedes that sits in Barbara’s garage is, she said, in Oprah’s name and the Porsche Cayenne Turbo that 81-year-old Vernon drives is thanks to his daughter.
But for all her very obvious wealth, Barbara said, with thinly veiled relish, ‘She was a horrible decorator.
‘Money cannot buy you taste. She would put plaid with stripes and all sorts.
In Indiana she must have had 200 dolls, some of them looked like they could have gone back to the slave days, lined up on long benches in the hallway. It was creepy.’
Then: Barbara claims that Oprah refused to give Vernon the money to renovate his run-down barber shop
Barbara and Vernon visited four of Oprah’s homes but were only ever invited to stay on Fisher Island and in Indiana. Otherwise, they were put up in hotels.
And if Barbara’s mistake was to not show Oprah the deference she expected, then it is clear the error was matched and returned by the star. Intentional or not, for Barbara, the slights came thick and fast.
‘She complained my sheets didn’t have 1000 thread count when she came to stay and that the bath towels and the coffee cups weren’t big enough,’ she claimed.
When Oprah threw her Legends’ Ball in Santa Barbara her father and stepmother were not invited to stay in the house but put up in a nearby hotel.
When they were shown to their table it was not on the main floor with the A listers – John Travolta, Sidney Poitier, Tina Turner, Alicia Keys – but ‘tucked in the corner on the second floor.’
She added, ‘We weren’t allowed to mingle with the celebrities--but we did.’
And when she and Vernon arrived at Oprah’s Chicago condo on one occasion she recalled,
‘Oprah got on the intercom and announced, “Negroes in the house. Negroes in the house.”
‘She thought it was funny. I thought it was insulting. I’m older than her. I know what it means. She was reminding us of our low class.’
According to Barbara, ‘I’ve seen what happens to people when they step out of their place and fall out with Oprah.
‘It wasn’t unusual over the years for her to fly to her house in Hawaii, call Gayle and say, “Fire so and so and so and so and so and so.”
‘She never says a word to that person herself. She never tells the person why. She never gives the person the chance to defend themselves and all the “gifts” are snatched back.’
Pausing, Barbara shook her head: ‘You know I sometimes feel sorry for her because she’s created this world for herself and really, it’s a mess.
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SOURCE: DailyMail
Laura Collins
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