Oprah Winfrey has never shied away from opening up about the more vulnerable aspects of her life. In a deeply personal moment, The Color Purple star reflected on her complicated relationship with her late mother, Vernita Lee, who passed away in 2018. Despite being her mother, Lee and Winfrey reportedly were not very close, and expressing admiration for her proved to be a challenge.
During an episode of The Oprah Podcast, as reported by Mindfood, Winfrey got emotional while discussing the difficult dynamic she shared with Lee. She recalled being invited to a church event where she was expected to publicly praise her mother. “It was important for her to be seen as religious in the community,” Winfrey explained. But when the moment came to speak, she was at a loss.
“I couldn’t think of one thing,” she admitted. In that moment, she struggled to recall a single positive memory that felt genuine. As she reflected on what to say, she asked herself, ‘What do I actually have to be grateful for?’ The answer she found was simple yet bittersweet: “She didn’t abort me. She did the best that she knew.”
Winfrey acknowledged that, while her mother did what she could, it wasn’t enough to give her the emotional support she needed growing up. “The best that she knew was not enough to feed what I needed, was not enough to make me feel whole, was not enough to make me feel valued or seen or important to her,” she shared. However, over time, she came to accept that Lee did the best she was capable of, even if it fell short of what Winfrey longed for as a child.
Vernita Lee worked as a maid while raising three children and lived a life of quiet resilience. She passed away at the age of 83 in her Milwaukee, Wisconsin home on Thanksgiving Day in 2018, as reported by People magazine.