Oprah Winfrey said she didn't recognize Calvin
Mitchell when he surprised her outside the Ed
Sullivan Theater on Oct. 15. She said she stopped
talking to him in the 1990s when he refused her
help.
Oprah Winfrey has shed some light on her
relationship with the so-called “secret son,”
who awkwardly ambushed her this month at a
Midtown TV taping.
Winfrey said the man who surprised her Oct. 15
outside the Ed Sullivan Theater was Calvin
Mitchell, whom she took under her wing more
than 20 years ago when she met him on the set
of a movie she was filming.
She said she has no long-lost child.
"We were shooting in the projects in Chicago
and I was sitting on set during a break, and this
cute little sparkly-eyed boy came underneath
the yellow tape to hand me a soda,” Winfrey told
“Entertainment Tonight.”
Oprah Winfrey on "The Late Show with Stephen
Colbert" on Oct. 15.
“I was so charmed by him that I started talking
to him about his family, his school life, and
found out that he was in a situation where his
mother didn't have a job and they were stuck in
the projects."
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Winfrey said she helped Calvin’s mother get a
job and move out of the projects, but despite
her best efforts Calvin was unable to make it
work at two private schools she paid for.
"I said, 'Calvin, this is the moment,” she
recalled. “This is a seminal moment for you. I
know you are 16 and can't see the road ahead,
but if you leave this school and refuse to get an
education — I have tried to offer you an
education twice — there isn't another school I
can put you in. If you leave this school, I am
done. There is nothing else I can do.' ... And that
was my last conversation with Calvin in the
early '90s."
Winfrey said she didn't immediately recognize
Calvin when he approached her after a taping of
"The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" earlier
this month.
She said she was “disappointed” that he
colluded with “The National Enquirer” to “set up”
the awkward reunion. She instructed a staffer to
get Calvin’s phone number.
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Winfrey said that it was her experience with
Calvin that inspired her to open her Leadership
Academy for Girls in 2007.
"I learned from that experience,” Winfrey said.
“If you really want to change somebody's life,
you’ve got to be able to spend enough time with
them to change the way they think about what
their life can be. It isn't enough to give a person
a new life or money or a new car, you have to
teach them how to fish themselves."
Posted by: Philip Ochika