Oprah Winfrey Gave Birth at 14 & ‘Never Felt like It Was’ Her Baby
|People prefer to hide their complicated past. Oprah Winfrey did the same and had not opened up about her daunting past until her half-sister disclosed it to the world. The TV mogul was devastated by her family member’s betrayal.
Television host Oprah Winfrey is a self-made billionaire with no children, but she has young females from her Academy whom she considers her “daughters.”
Here are the details about the iconic daytime TV star’s painful past, her view on having kids, and her “daughters,” who she said have enabled her to fulfill her maternal duties.
While her life has not always been easy, she has ensured that she has a giving spirit and tries to do as much as she can for those less fortunate than she.
Winfrey’s Pregnancy and Her Mother’s Decision
Winfrey fell pregnant at age fourteen and hid the pregnancy for seven months until the child was born. She shared in her “Life Class” program for OWN that she saved the unborn baby because she felt detached:
“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 Winfrey at the “Greenleaf” Press Conference held at the Four Seasons Hotel on September 26, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. | Source: Getty Images
Winfrey admitted hiding the pregnancy brought her nothing but shame and that having swollen ankles and a big belly made it evident that she was expecting:
“I was so ashamed. I hid the pregnancy until my swollen ankles and belly gave me away.”
“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,” Winfrey continued.
She talked about the overall ordeal and how it made her feel at the time and said: “The experience was the most emotional, confusing, traumatic of my young life.”
Winfrey further explained that being taken to the detention home and waiting to be processed while there, she remembered how relatives abused her from age nine.
The media mogul disclosed that she had been sexually abused at nine and ten years old, and was molested for all of those years, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy.
Winfrey said, looking around the detention home at all of those girls who had been placed there for being “bad girls,” she remembered having a moment thinking, “now I am officially a bad girl.”
She thought to herself: “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.” She sat there waiting to be processed and said to herself that she did not belong there:
“I don’t even know how this happened to me that I’m in a place for bad girls because I didn’t feel like I was a bad girl.”
Luckily for her,...