LOS ANGELES — Oprah Winfrey has staged many a family reunion on her talk show. But on Monday’s episode, she promises, the drama will be about her.
Winfrey told viewers Thursday that she will have a reunion of her own on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” She wouldn’t say with whom – only that it involves something she’s learned about recently and is known to only a few people close to her.
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“I thought I’d seen it all. But this, my friends, is the miracle of all miracles,” Winfrey says in a promotional spot for the show. The word “miracle” appears on screen, reinforcing her pronouncement.
“I was given some news that literally shook me to my core. This time, I’m the one being reunited,” she said. “I was keeping a family secret for months, and on Monday you’re going to hear it straight from me.”
Her production company, Harpo, declined to provide further details Friday.
Given Winfrey’s tangled family history, the possibilities for her reunion are many.
She was born to unmarried teenagers, Vernon Winfrey and Vernita Lee, and raised at various times by a grandmother, her mother, and her father and stepmother in Mississippi, Wisconsin and Tennessee.
As a teenager, Oprah Winfrey gave birth to a son who died shortly afterward. That chapter of her life was revealed after a family member sold the story to a tabloid in 1990, and Winfrey was said to have felt betrayed.
Using her Chicago-based show to disclose a new wrinkle in her personal history allows her to keep other media from getting hold of it first.
Winfrey has proved herself a master at milking family reunion drama, celebrity and otherwise, on her syndicated talk show that’s in its 25th and final season. This month, she launched a cable channel, OWN.
She reunited more than 100 members of the Osmonds. After decades apart, singer Seal and his foster sister were reunited on Winfrey’s show. There was also the memorable reunion of sisters Clemantine and Claire Wamariya, who escaped the Rwandan genocide and immigrated to America, and their parents.
Eastwood and Beyonce pursuing ‘Star’ rebirth
LOS ANGELES — Clint Eastwood and Beyonce may be teaming up to make a musical version of “A Star Is Born.”
Warner Bros. confirms that the two are in negotiations to remake the 1937 classic.
Eastwood is in talks to direct, while Beyonce, who has been attached to the project for some time, would star.
Set to produce are Billy Gerber, Basil Iwanyk and Jon Peters, who made the 1976 version of the film with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
Corporate spokeswoman Jessica Zacholl notes that the deals have not been finalized and negotiations are ongoing.
Packer misses cue at concert
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Aaron Rodgers took a brief break from football Thursday night, making an onstage appearance at a Brad Paisley concert in Green Bay.
Rodgers says he was supposed to help the country star sing a line from the song “I’m Still A Guy,” but was having trouble hearing so he just started high-fiving people. The quarterback joked that it’s probably a good thing that he didn’t sing, given the limitations of his voice.
Rodgers will lead the Packers in Sunday’s NFC championship game in Chicago.
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