What Is Oprah's Big Family Secret?

Usually, Oprah Winfrey is in the business of helping others reveal their family secrets via her talk show. Monday, she is revealing a shocker of her own. It's about time we get something substantial from the media giant.

According to the Huffington Post, Oprah was recently reunited with the half-sister she never knew she had, referred to only as Patricia. Oprah was nine years old when Patricia was born, and at the time she was living with her father. Her mother, Vernita Lee, put the baby up for adoption because she felt she could not provide for her. She never told Oprah, keeping the secret under lock and key for almost 50 years. Oprah Just Isn’t The Marrying Kind Of Gal

"I thought it was a terrible thing for me to do, that I had done, gave up my daughter when she was born," Lee said. "I made the decision to give her up because I wasn't able to take care of her. So when I left the hospital, I told the nurse I wasn't going to keep the baby."

Patricia found out in 2007 that she was related to Oprah after her two grown children insisted she search for her long-lost family. At first, she got a disheartening call from the state telling her that her biological mother had been contacted and did not wish to reconnect. But that same day Patricia happened to see a story on the news where Lee described how Oprah's siblings had passed away. The information matched what was in her adoption papers--that she had two sisters and a brother, and only the older sister was still living. To make matters more eerie, Lee also happened to mention that her deceased daughter's name had been Patricia.

"The hairs on the back of my neck stood up," Patricia said. "Because I knew one of my siblings and I shared the same name."

Patricia tried unsuccessfully to contact Winfrey many times, but never went to the press with the story. That deeply touched Oprah, as her other sister sold a personal story to the media years ago about Oprah's pregnancy, and the death of her child, at age fourteen.

"She never once thought to sell the story," Oprah said.

Why not? Patricia's explanation was simple. "Family business should be handled by family. It couldn't be handled by anyone else. That's not fair. It wouldn't be fair to you," she told Oprah.

DNA tests confirmed that the two are indeed half-sisters, and Oprah called the revelation "the miracle of all miracles." We couldn't be happier for both of them.