TEDMAN D OPRAH
US President Barack Obama, with the TV icon choosing to take along her long-term friend Gayle King instead.
‘Stedman has had enough, plain and simple,’ the source says. ‘He’s been sitting in the background their entire relationship, while she just calls the shots. He really thought that after she quit the show, she would make more time for him.
‘But things couldn’t be further from the truth. The final straw was when she forgot his birthday and invited Gayle away with the Obamas instead of him. They had some big arguments after that, and he finally called it quits. But it’s been a long time coming – that’s for sure.’
Adds another source: ‘The whole birthday thing was a fiasco. Everyone’s convinced she forgot. There was no mention to him online and the next day he’s spouting about anger and rising above it.
‘It’s easy to see why he’d have had enough after three decades. Not acknowledging his birthday is just the latest in a long line of disappointments for him.’
Another sore point in the relationship, say friends, has been Oprah’s growing desperation to win an Oscar.
Despite quitting TV and promising Stedman to ‘slow down’, the star is taking her acting career to the next level – at the cost of her relationship.
‘She’s got the acting bug, big time,’ says the source.
‘She’s totally focused on her acting and film and television production company. That’s two full-time jobs.
‘But everyone knows her goal is winning an Oscar. Remember, she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1985 [for The Color Purple], so she’s had a taste for that glory for a very long time – and she had it again as a producer with Selma. But she wants the big one – the Best Actress gong. Emmys next, then the Academy.
‘You can’t blame Stedman for feeling rejected.’
Adds a friend: ‘Stedman really thought that now that Oprah is
63, she would slow down a bit and they could just be a happy couple in their twilight years. Take cruises, go on long holidays – but if anything, she’s working more than ever.
‘He’s sick of being so low on her priorities – it’s no shock that he’s walked out on her once and for all.’
But despite Stedman’s bitterness, sources close to Oprah say she’s devastated by the split and is hopeful of a reconciliation.
‘This has been hard on Oprah,’ says a source. ‘Stedman’s been with her through thick and thin – to see him finally walk away breaks her heart.’
‘Stedman has had enough, plain and simple... It’s been a long time coming’