Oprah Makes First Public Appearance With Partner in 7 Years
The couple has been together since 1986, but keeps their relationship private.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Oprah Winfrey was captured in a rare photo with her partner of four decades.
Over the weekend, the talk show legend, 72, celebrated a reunion with her old colleagues from her media company, Harpo Studios, almost 15 years after The Oprah Winfrey Show wrapped.
She attended the event at Navy Pier in Chicago with Stedman Graham, 75, whom she has dated since 1986. The couple has not been photographed together in seven years.
On Sunday, The Oprah Winfrey Show’s former senior supervising producer Jill Van Lokeren posted a photo on Instagram, in which Winfrey and Graham smiled while holding a platter of fried drumsticks.
Art Smith, Oprah Winfrey, and Stedman Graham at the Harpo Studios reunion.
Instagram/Jill Van Lokeren
The party was arranged by Ty Owens, the previous parking manager of Harpo Studios, and held at Art Smith’s restaurant, Reunion.
Smith, who also appeared in the photo, was Winfrey’s former personal chef and a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
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Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham at the 2002 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
Fred Prouser/Reuters
“Fifteen-year reunion for The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Van Lokeren wrote. “A night of all love and pure joy.”
She described Winfrey as “the best segment one surprise guest,” but some commenters were more delighted to spot a rare sight of Graham.
One of the comments read, “Good to see Stedman.”
The couple, who mostly keep their relationship private, was last photographed together in October 2019.
Stedman Graham and Oprah Winfrey were last pictured together in October 2019 at the Tyler Perry Studios grand opening gala in Atlanta, Georgia.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Tyler Perry Studios
Graham and Winfrey first met in 1986, while both visiting a mutual friend who was ill. At the time, Graham had a girlfriend, and The Color Purple actress thought he was “too handsome” to be interested in her.
Later that year, after Graham was single, he approached Winfrey, and the two have been together ever since. It was a major turning point in her career, too, as 1986 was also the year when Winfrey began hosting her industry-changing talk show.
Even Oprah Winfrey, one of the most independently successful people in the world, felt insecure prior to dating her longtime partner.
Jamie McCarthy/Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Winfrey and Graham were engaged for a brief period of time in 1993, before Winfrey called off the engagement.
In 2020, Winfrey explained her decision to pursue a “spiritual partnership” instead of walking down the aisle.
“He and I agree that had we tied the marital knot, we would not still be together,” she wrote in an essay in her Oprah Daily magazine.
“For years, there were hundreds of tabloid stories, weekly, on whether we would marry,” Winfrey recalled.
She said that she had doubts mere moments after saying “yes” to Graham’s proposal.
Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham at the People’s Choice Awards in 1995, where Winfrey won the award for "Favorite Television Performer."
Reuters
“I realized I didn’t actually want a marriage. I wanted to be asked,” she wrote. “I wanted to know he felt I was worthy of being his missus, but I didn’t want the sacrifices, the compromises, the day-in-day-out commitment required to make a marriage work.”
Oprah Winfrey started hosting her show in 1986. Pictured here in the studio with former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1995.
Reuters
Winfrey wrote that one of the reasons she did not want to marry Graham at the time was that her talk show was her priority.
In 2019, Winfrey told People that one reason the couple did not have children was her “17-hour workdays,” but that she had no regrets about the decision.
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