“Yesterday, with my family at his bedside, I had the sacred honor of watching the man responsible for my life take his last breath,” Oprah said in a tribute to her father shared on Instagram. “We could feel the Peace enter the room as he passed.”
A tribute written in Oprah Daily, Oprah’s lifestyle publication, said Oprah was able to spend time with her father in Nashville during his final weeks.
On the 4th of July, Vernon was surprised with a “Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Celebration” and backyard barbecue, where he was surrounded by friends and loved ones.
The celebration was a way to give her father her “flowers while he’s still healthy enough to smell them,” Oprah said in an earlier post.
During the celebration, Oprah’s friend and gospel singer Wintley Phipps sang for him. “He FELT the love and enjoyed it until he could no longer speak,” she wrote.
Vernon was a well-known barber in his community and served on the Metro Nashville Council for 16 years.
“My deepest condolences to Vernon Winfrey’s family. Vernon has served on the Metro Council for 16 years and has dedicated his life to entrepreneurship, barbering and mentoring young men in the community,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said on Twitter. “An Army veteran and deacon, he leaves behind a legacy of service.” Oprah’s mother, Vernita Lee, died in 2018 at age 83. Lee was born in Mississippi and gave birth to Winfrey as a young woman. Lee and Vernon never married.
CNN’s Rebecca Rees contributed to this report.
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