Vernon Winfrey, the father of media mogul and OWN network-owner Oprah Winfrey, died in Nashville, TN, on Friday at the age of 88. According to Deadline, Oprah confirmed the news in an Instagram post saying, “Yesterday, with family surrounding his bedside, I had the sacred honor of witnessing the man responsible for my life take his last breath. We could feel peace enter the room at his passing.” Oprah had just surprised her father with a barbecue on the Fourth of July. The event was called “Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Day,” and Oprah even included a barber chair to honor his long career as a barber. Vernon Winfrey owned his Nashville barbershop for more than 50 years.
Vernon Winfrey: Barber, Councilman, and Father to Oprah Winfrey
Along with his work as a barber, Vernon Winfrey served as a member of Nashville’s Metro City Council for 16 years. He was also a trustee for Tennessee State University. Vernon Winfrey was also an army veteran and a deacon. NBC News reports that Oprah lived with her father between the ages of seven and nine and during her teens.
Oprah Winfrey has made a name for herself as a successful and inspirational figure in multimedia. She began her career in journalism and earned an Oscar nomination for Stephen Spielberg’s The Color Purple. Of course, her career as we know it today was made with The Oprah Winfrey Show which ran for 25 years. She continues to run her businesses while still doing interviews with high-profile celebrities such as Elliot Page and Adele.
In 1986, Oprah told The Washington Post, “If I hadn’t been sent to my father (when I was 14), I would have gone in another direction. I could have made a good criminal. I would have used these same instincts differently.”
Oprah Winfrey clearly held her father Vernon Winfrey and his influence on her life in high regard.