Vernon Winfrey, father of the most famous American broadcaster, Oprah Winfrey, has died at the age of 89.
In an Instagram post, Oprah confirmed her father’s death in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday.
“Yesterday, with my family surrounding his bed on all sides, I had the honor of seeing the man in charge of my life take his last breath,” she wrote. We could feel peace entering the room upon his death.”
Earlier in the week, Oprah surprised her father with a barbecue in Nashville on Independence Day July 4, calling the party “Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Day,” which included a barber chair display to honor his long career as a barber and owning his own store in Nashville for nearly 50 years. .
Oprah spent her early childhood in her father’s hometown of Kosciusko, Mississippi, and in Milwaukee with her mother, Verneta Lee, who died in 2018. She also lived with her father in Nashville, between the ages of seven and nine, as well as during her teenage years.
“If I had not been sent to my father when I was 14, my life would have taken a different turn,” Oprah said in an interview with the Washington Post in 1986.