When Oprah Winfrey's Stepmom Said She Was Kicked Out of $1.4M Home By Her: "Robbed Me of My Husband"

Cover Image Source: Getty Images| Photo by Greg Doherty; (inset) Photo by Adriane Jaeckle

In the 2000s, Barbara Winfrey married Vernon, Oprah Winfrey's father. The couple spent more than ten years together before Vernon filed for divorce in 2012. Subsequently, Oprah granted her stepmother just 60 days to leave the couple's magnificent five-bedroom home in Franklin, south Nashville, where she had lived for 14 years, amid a contentious divorce.

Oprah Winfrey’s stepmom Barbara Winfrey claims Oprah is kicking her out of her marital h ... - http://t.co/ljnUkljLnO pic.twitter.com/6rI26RY9RV

— Ose (@Ogaose) April 23, 2014

In an exclusive with the Daily Mail, Barbara claimed her stepdaughter had been scheming to destroy her life. "That woman has set out to ruin me, destroy me.
To take this house away is petty. This has been my home for 14 years.
She's robbed me of my husband, and now my home," Barbara said while vacating the $1.4 million property in 2014. 

She elaborated, "Oprah’s a billionaire three times over, her help lives better than this. She said publicly that she offered to sell the house and give me the proceeds, but that’s a lie, she never said that. Oprah owns property all over the world so there is no reason to sell this house other than to spite me. It’s a personal vendetta." The media magnate was accused in court documents of being a part of a 'conspiracy' to get her father to divorce Barbara. Oprah reportedly accompanied her dad to 'secret meetings' where they hatched a scheme to force Barbara out of the house. However, Vernon refuted the allegations. "What she has done is nothing short of evil, but she doesn’t scare me, her actions cause me to disrespect her," stated Barbara.

Image Source: Getty Images| Photo by Munawar Hosain

"We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on furniture, everything was high-end," she added. The former school teacher believed her stepdaughter took ‘pleasure’ in uprooting her from her home. "That’s why I feel sorry for her because I don’t understand the evilness," she said. "I’m at the point in life when I should be enjoying my retirement. Instead, I have to contend with this.
There’s a difference between wanting to hurt someone and destroying them. To take their money, to take their credit, take their property...I don’t understand that, that’s evilness I can’t comprehend." The spacious mansion boasted a modern kitchen, a stunning landscape, a wine cellar, a library, a billiards room, and a high-end bar. 

According to the Daily Mail, Barbara broke down in tears as she explained that she had nowhere to go and that her negative credit prevented her from renting any real estate. "I'm not trying to stay here [just] to stay here," she expressed in an interview with The Tennessean. "Where am I going to go at 66...to find someplace to live? Who's going to rent to me?"

According to the judge's decision, Oprah purchased the property after her father gave it to a man named Tom Walker, who later missed mortgage payments. "The court finds [Vernon Winfrey] allowed [the marital property] to go into foreclosure knowing that it would be purchased by his daughter, Oprah, for his and Thomas Walker's benefit and to defeat any interest of Barbara Winfrey," the ruling stated.

"The property was in foreclosure and when it went up for auction, Ms. Winfrey bid and got it because she didn't want her father's life work to be dissolved," a spokesman said. Barbara declined an offer to choose a different property in Chateau Valley, Nashville, as part of the terms of her divorce agreement to avoid signing a confidentiality agreement about Oprah. "I'm not going to sign anything," she had stated. "After several requests to voluntarily vacate the property at Willowbrook Circle, the appropriate paperwork has been filed to have her vacate the property," Oprah's spokeswoman told the Tennessean at the time