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Vernon Winfrey, Oprah’s father, Dies at 89

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Oprah Winfrey’s father, Vernon Winfrey, has died at the age of 89.

Oprah posted an Instagram message confirming that her father had died on Friday in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Yesterday with family surrounding his bedside I had the sacred honor of witnessing the man responsible for my life, take his last breath,” the media mogul wrote. “We could feel peace enter the room at his passing.”

Information about funeral plans was not available immediately.

Oprah surprise her father with a barbeque at his home in Nashville this Fourth of July. The event was called “Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Day,” which included a barber chair to honor his long career as a barber and owning his own shop in Nashville for nearly 50 years.

Vernon served as a member of Nashville’s Metro City Council for 16 years and was a trustee for the Tennessee State University.

Oprah spent her early childhood at her father’s hometown of Kosciusko, Mississippi, and in Milwaukee with her mother, Vernita Lee, who died in 2018. She also lived in Nashville with her dad between 7 and 9, and her teens.

“If I hadn’t been sent to my father (when I was 14), I would have gone in another direction,” Oprah told the Washington Post in 1986. “I could have made a good criminal. I would have used these same instincts differently.”

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