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According to WKRN-TV News 2, on Saturday, July 9, Nashville Metropolitan Councilwoman Sharon Hurt confirmed that renowned talk show host Oprah Winfrey's father had passed away. Vernon Winfrey reportedly died on Friday evening.
Winfrey's father, Vernon, was 88 years old at the time of his demise and had been suffering from cancer. As of now, no additional information surrounding the octogenarian's demise is available. Furthermore, it is also not known what type of cancer plagued the Nashville resident.
Oprah Winfrey has yet to confirm the news of her father amid the mourning period.
What is known about Oprah Winfrey's father, Vernon Winfrey?
Vernon Winfrey was born in 1933 and had fathered Oprah Winfrey with his partner at the time, Vernita Lee. The two had been briefly together and were never married. Oprah's father was reportedly a barber and a businessman.
According to a profile in the Washington Post in 1986 by Jill Nelson, Vernon Winfrey had previously been in the army and settled in Nashville in 1955. After earning his livelihood with a few odd jobs, sometimes two at a time, Winfrey became a barber in 1964. The article further stated:
"Since 1975, he has been an elected member of Nashville's Metro Council, representing the mostly black 5th District, serving 15,000 constituents who have reelected him twice."
Vernon Winfrey reportedly cut hair in his shop in Tennessee until he was much older. He had been a barber for over five decades. For such reasons, Vernon is also a member of the National Barber Museum and was inducted into their Hall of Fame.
Oprah Winfrey's relationship with her father, Vernon
At the time of Oprah Winfrey's birth in 1955, her father was still in service. Following her birth, Oprah was raised by her maternal-grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee, till she was 6. According to Katherine E. Krohn's book on The Oprah Winfrey Network (ONN) owner, Oprah was reportedly abused by Lee and lived in poverty.
Initially, in the early 1960s, Oprah was sent to Nashville to live with her father temporarily. However, when she was nine, Winfrey was asked to return to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by her mother. At the time, Vernon Winfrey claimed to have cried while leaving Oprah at her mother's. The renowned talk show host's mother reportedly worked as a maid and was not quite attentive towards her daughter, owing to her occupation as a maid that kept her busy.
Following her s*xual assaults by multiple family members in Milwaukee, Oprah was pregnant at the age of 14. She gave birth to a premature boy, who did not survive. After this ordeal, Winfrey was raised by her father, who was reportedly strict but focused on her education. Later, she would proceed to tell Nelson:
"When my father took me, it changed the course of my life…He saved me. He simply knew what he wanted and expected. He would take nothing less."
While Winfrey's mother passed away in 2018, the billionaire television producer had a strained relationship with her. However, this was not the case with her father. Earlier this week, Winfrey celebrated the Fourth of July in honor of her father. She took to Instagram to share how she organized the barbeque just for him in Nashville with close family.
In one of the posts, she posted a video of the celebration and mentioned in the caption that she was giving her "father his 'flowers' while he's still well enough to smell them."
