Oprah recalls the traumatic night she was sent to live with her mother in Wisconsin - and forced to sleep outside on a porch because her skin was 'too dark'

  • Oprah spent the first years of her life in rural Mississippi with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee
  • At age six, she was sent to live with her mother, Vernita Lee, in Wisconsin where she worked as a housemaid
  • Oprah recalled Vernita's roommate was a light-skinned black woman who took an instant dislike to her because of her dark complexion 
  • The future queen of daytime TV said she was forced to sleep on a porch while her light-skinned half-sister slept indoors  

Decades before she became the queen of daytime TV, a media mogul and an Oscar-nominated producer, a young Oprah Winfrey was forced to sleep on a porch because her mother's light-skinned roommate didn't like the child's dark complexion.

The 61-year-old founder of Oprah Winfrey Network currently has a net worth of $3billion, but she has never forgotten her hardscrabble childhood marked by crushing poverty, physical abuse, rape at age nine and an early pregnancy.

Winfrey spent the first years of her life in rural Mississippi with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee, who taught her how to read before the age of three and introduced her to religion.

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Bleak past: Oprah Winfrey, 61, recalls the night she was separated from her grandmother at age six and sent to live with her mother, whose roommate wouldn't let her sleep indoors because she was too dark-skinne 

Mother-daughter bond: Vernita Lee (pictured right in 1994) had Oprah when she was still a teenager and sent her to live with her mother in rural Mississippi

Mother-daughter bond: Vernita Lee (pictured right in 1994) had Oprah when she was still a teenager and sent her to live with her mother in rural Mississippi

Full of potential: The 61-year-old founder of Oprah Winfrey Network, pictured here as an 8th-grader in 1967, currently has a net worth of $3billion, but she has never forgotten her hardscrabble childhood

Full of potential: The 61-year-old founder of Oprah Winfrey Network, pictured here as an 8th-grader in 1967, currently has a net worth of $3billion, but she has never forgotten her hardscrabble childhood

Oprah Winfrey as a freshman at Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin, in 1969
Oprah Winfrey as a sophomore at Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin, in 1969

Victimized: Oprah, pictured left as a freshman and right as a sophomore at Nicolet High School in Wisconsin, was raped at age nine and became pregnant when she was 14 years old 

At age six, Oprah was separated from her tough but encouraging grandmother and sent to live with her mother, Vernita Lee, in Wisconsin.

‘I suddenly land in a place that's completely foreign to me. I don't know anybody. I don't really even know my mother,’ Oprah told HuffPost OWN. ‘I walked into that space feeling completely alone and abandoned.’

Vernita, who had Oprah as an unwed teenage, was working as a housemaid in Milwaukee and sharing a house with another woman.

Oprah Winfrey is pictured coming out of CBS studios Wednesday morning in New York

Oprah Winfrey is pictured coming out of CBS studios Wednesday morning in New York

The queen of daytime opted for a green long-sleeved wrap dress for her outing
She took time to sign some autographs for her fans lined up outside

Making them green with envy: The queen of daytime opted for a green long-sleeved wrap dress for her outing. She took time to sign some autographs for her fans lined up outside 

‘I remember the first night entering into that house and being told that I wouldn't be able to sleep with my mother and I wouldn't be able to sleep inside the house,’ Oprah says. ‘There was a little foyer/porch before you actually got inside the house. I was put outside to sleep there.’

Winfrey recalled initially being confused by her banishment, but she then realized that it had to do with her complexion.

‘My mother was boarding with this very light-skinned black woman who could have passed for white... I could tell instantly when I walked in the room that she didn't like me. It was because of the color of my skin.’

Winfrey also evoked the porch episode in Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr’s 2007 biography Finding Oprah's Roots, revealing that her mother's housemate, a Miss Miller, loved her light-skinned half-sister, Patricia, but didn't like her because 'I was nappy-headed colored child,' she was quoted in the book as saying of herself. 

Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham arrive at the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015
Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, and Gayle King attend the David Geffen Hall Renaming Ceremony & The New York Philharmonic's 2015-16 Opening Gala Concert at Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center on September 24, 2015 in New York City

Banished: Oprah, pictured left with Stedman Graham at an Oscar party in February and right with Barbara Walters, and Gayle King at Lincoln Center in New York in September, said her mother's roommate in Wisconsin deemed her complexion too dark to let her sleep indoors 

Rags to riches: Oprah Winfrey receives the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama at the White House on November 20, 2013 in Washington, DC

Rags to riches: Oprah Winfrey receives the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama at the White House on November 20, 2013 in Washington, DC

As she slept outside, Oprah, who as a toddler got the nickname the Preacher for her uncanny ability to recite Bible verses, said she was comforted by her faith.

‘I remember praying on my knees the very first night I had been removed from my grandmother,’ she says. ‘I don't remember ever shedding a tear about it because I knew that God was my father, Jesus was my brother, and they were with me.’ 

This Sunday at 8pm Eastern Time, Oprah presents on OWN a new seven-part documentary series titled Belief that explores the origins of various faiths around the world.

 

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