OPRAH’S SECRET WEDDING
After years of insisting she would never marry, Oprah Winfrey will soon finally make it official with her long-term partner, Stedman Graham.
A friend of the former talk-show host has revealed to New Idea that after more than three decades together, the couple are planning on becoming husband and wife.
“It’s been a long time coming, but Oprah and Stedman will finally say, ‘I do,’” says a source close to the couple. “They’ve been together for [nearly] 35 years and, to be honest, many of us never thought we’d see the day Oprah would walk down the aisle as a bride – but we were wrong!”
The closest Oprah and Stedman have ever come to making their relationship official was in 1992, at the height of her TV fame, when the pair publicly announced their engagement.
However, they never got married and in 2015 Oprah revealed her reasons, explaining, “I don’t want to be married because I could not have the life that I created for myself.”
Two years later she elaborated, revealing that Stedman wanted a traditional marriage and that she “would not have been able to fit into that”, adding that had they got married earlier as planned, they wouldn’t still be together.
Now, just weeks after Oprah, 65, announced her departure from the US news show
60 Minutes, it seems the pair have had a change of heart. It’s thought they will celebrate their
union with a low-key ceremony with just their closest friends and family in attendance.
“Oprah said that even though she said she’d never get married, as the years have gone on, her priorities have changed and she decided she wanted to live out her final years with Stedman as husband and wife.”
It’s likely Oprah was inspired by the recent wedding of her protégée Lizhuwani Gloria Rapalalani. The TV star walked Gloria – one of the first students to graduate from Oprah’s South African girls’ school – down the aisle, having played a significant role in the lead up to the nuptials. At the end of April, she posted an emotional picture of herself with Gloria and her friends as they shopped for a wedding dress. Captioning the happy snap, “I’ve known these girls since they were 12 and 13 coming to my school. Graduating from college. Grad school. Now our first wedding. Looking for the perfect dress. #biglifemoment”.
Now it seems that being part of this romantic occasion has inspired Oprah to have her own bridal moment. “She’s slowing down her career and is spending more time just relaxing, and she and Stedman are closer than ever. Oprah just decided that the timing is right.”