Oprah's "Big Family Secret" Revealed

The promos for today’s episode of Oprah have teased viewers with the promise of revealing a Winfrey family secret that O says, “literally shook me to my core.” The suspense has ended…after the jump!

Oprah has a long-lost half-sister named Patricia. They share the same mother, Vernita Lee, who gave Patricia up for adoption after her birth in 1963. (Not to be confused with her other half-sister named Patricia, who died in 2003, who told Kitty Kelley all kinds of dirt on the talk show host—including that she used to have sex for money—for her biography.)

This Patricia hasn’t talked to the press at all since she first had a feeling that she was related to Oprah since 2007, after putting the pieces together while watching a television interview with Vernita. Oprah was reportedly impressed that Patricia never sold her story to any tabloids and wanted to meet someone of that kind of character. The two women first met on Thanksgiving 2010, and then reunited on Oprah’s stage in an episode that will air today. Also, in a taped interview segment, the half-sisters sit down with their mother Vernita, who Oprah absolves of any shame she felt.

Oprah’s secret is out! [USA Today]
Oprah Reveals She has a Long-Lost Sister [Entertainment Tonight]