The real story behind Oprah’s 14-year-old pregnancy and why she claimed the baby never felt like hers
Oprah has long been a mainstay in the world of celebrity. Aside from her Academy Award-nominated performance in The Color Purple in 1985, Oprah is best known for her talk show, where she asks tough questions to her celebrity guests.
Oprah has also been outspoken about her upbringing in poverty and her struggle to become the woman she is today. Many people may be unaware of Oprah because she became pregnant at the age of 14, and she claims that the child “never felt like it was her baby.”
Winfrey was so secretive about her adolescent pregnancy that she kept it a secret for seven months until she was forced to have a premature birth. During her Life Class program, she revealed that she was embarrassed by her pregnancy and wanted to keep it hidden from everyone she knew.
She also discussed her feelings of estrangement from the baby after it was born.
“I was so ashamed. I hid the pregnancy until my swollen ankles and belly gave me away… I saved that baby because I was so disassociated and still do feel such a disassociation. I never felt like it was my baby.”
Oprah has also spoken out about how that entire period of her life inflicted trauma on her, which she would carry with her as he grew older. The talk-show host was open about her emotional fragility at the time and how it has impacted her even as an adult.
“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.”
“The experience was the most emotional, confusing, traumatic of my young life.”
Unfortunately, the child died soon after birth.
Winfrey was then transferred to a detention facility. She described looking around her and finally gaining a sense of her enviroment.
“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.”
Unfortunately, the people at the detention facility were unable to accommodate her and told her mother to bring her back in a couple of weeks. After that, Winfrey went to live with her father, and that’s when she decided to change her life.
“From that moment forward, I felt like I had been somehow saved, that somebody up there recognized that I wasn’t a bad girl.”
Oprah worked hard from then on to become the woman she is today. She is now a media mogul and one of the most famous and successful people in the world.
