Oprah Unloads Stepmother and Stepmother Unloads Her Anger

Oprah Winfrey’s stepmother, 66-year-old Barbara Winfrey, is pretty angry and frustrated that she is being evicted from the home she shared with Winfrey’s father, Vernon, for 14 years. Barbara gave a detailed interview — two parts, mind you — to the Daily Mail, with her side of how the situation came about, saying she has 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.”

Her main gripe seems to be that she thought Oprah had given the home to her and Vernon as a gift but, it turned out, the deed to the place was never in their names. She said that her husband once told her “just because someone gives you something does not mean they love you” and said he meant Oprah.

“I know people have read about this and thought, ‘Who does she think she is? Why should she get a million dollar home?'” she told the Daily Mail. “But can you see it’s not about that? It’s about everything that went before. Look at how she has treated me. I laid my head next to her father for 14 years and she never thought me worthy of talking to.”

She explains that Oprah would not help her father renovate his barber shop so Barbara put up a property that she herself owned to help him. Somehow Oprah ending up owning that too, and kicked Barbara’s relatives out and sold the place. Oprah treated her and Vernon like inferiors, Barbara claimed, and described a controlling and manipulative woman who loves having power.

She also dished on Oprah’s relationship with Stedman and how Oprah spied on his every move, which Stedman found out during the course of an argument, and she echoed some of Rae Dawn Chong’s sentiments (that Rae Dawn later apologized for) that Oprah is not really happy with her looks.

But, you know, what the Daily Mail really wanted some dirt on was Oprah’s relationship with Gayle King. Barbara Winfrey said, among other things, that Gayle and Oprah are together more than Stedman and Oprah.

We have never thought that the million dollar giveaways on Oprah’s talk show were her own personal money, but we do remember Oprah saying once that she gave Gayle King a million dollars and paid the gift tax on it herself.