American
pride Oprah Winfrey has spoken out about an awkward encounter with Calvin
Mitchell, who claimed to have been raised by the presenter before they became
estranged 20 years ago.
Oprah, 62,
can be seen acknowledging the now truck-driver's presence, putting her hand on
his chest as he attempted to engage her in conversation.
Setting the
record straight after the pictures surfaced online, she said: “I met Calvin
around the early ‘90s, I think it was 1992."
“I was doing a film for television called
There Are No Children Here. We were shooting in the projects in Chicago and I
was sitting on set during a break, and this cute little sparkly-eyed boy came
underneath the yellow tape to hand me a soda.”
Oprah
admitted she was so "charmed" by him that she engaged in conversation
with him and discovered his mum didn't have a job and they lived in the
projects.
She added
that she and partner Stedman Graham decided to take him under their wing and
paid for him to go to a local private school while also finding a job for his
mother.
He was later
expelled and Oprah decided to send him to a private boarding school in
Mississippi which she thought would be better for him, but at 16 he left after
claiming "the teachers didn't like him".
"I
said, 'Calvin, this is the moment. This is a seminal moment for you. I know you
are 16 and can't see the road ahead, but if you leave this school and refuse to
get an education - I have tried to offer you an education twice - there isn't
another school I can put you in. If you leave this school, I am done. There is
nothing else I can do.' And that was my last conversation with Calvin in the
early '90s."
When he
approached her earlier this month the 62-year-old says she didn't instantly
recognise him but tried to contact him after the run-in. That was until Winfrey
got wind that the young man had sold his story to a tabloid years after
"When I
realized the whole thing was a setup, I was no longer interested in speaking to
him."
Although
Winfrey says she wasn't hurt by the experience, she did admit she was left
disappointed by the boy again, but counts it as a learning experience.
"I
learned from that experience, if you really want to change somebody's life, you
gotta be able to spend enough time with them to change the way they think about
what their life can be. It isn't enough to give a person a new life or money or
a new car, you have to teach them how to fish themselves."
But when she
found out it was a set up, reportedly masterminded by the National Enquirer,
she no longer wanted to speak to him, saying she was "disappointed".
"I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, but it was the only way to get in touch with you,"
Mitchell reportedly told the star outside the studio, referring to a recent
interview where he discussed their relationship.
Oprah says
she sent him to two different private schools. Confirming Oprah's comments,
Calvin revealed she helped raise him for five years but when he was a “dumb”
17-year-old he made mistakes and she didn’t forgive him.
Mitchell
told RadarOnline: “I want to ask Oprah, ‘Why did you leave me? Why did you
leave me?'
“We had a
close relationship. Oprah and Stedman were like family to me.”
He told the
site that the legendary star coughed up the cash for his expensive education at
The Piney Woods School, a prestigious Christian-based boarding school. But when
he dropped out of the school, Oprah turned her back on the teen.
“I was
young. I made a dumb decision, and Oprah wouldn’t forgive me,” he said. “I feel
like what she did was wrong.” 'She told me, "Calvin, just try to work it
out. You can do it. Just hang in there." She was trying to inspire me to
do what was right. But even after the long pep talk she gave me, I still left.'
He added:
'I just wanted to come home, and Oprah didn't understand that.'
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