Oprah Winfrey Praised Long-Lost Half-Sister for Not Selling Her Out

 Oprah Winfrey's big secret is out - she has long lost sister. The media mogul announced on Friday, January 21 she would start this week by making a personal confession during "The Oprah Winfrey Show".

On the programme, aired in the U.S. on Monday, January 24 afternoon, the TV mogul opens up about her family history and reveals she has a secret half-sister

called Patricia, who was given up for adoption by Winfrey's mother, Vernita Lee, in 1963 when the star was nine years old.

Winfrey says, "I was nine years old at the time of (Patricia's adoption), living with my father in Nashville, Tennessee. I had no idea my mother was even pregnant.... For the most part, my life has been an open book and on the show I think I've seen about everything. And I thought nothing could surprise me anymore, but let me tell you I was wrong."

Patricia, from Milwaukee, is said to have found out about her famous sibling in 2007, while Winfrey learned about her relative last November. The two met for the first time over the Thanksgiving holiday, while Winfrey, Patricia and their mother were all reunited on the show.

Oprah has honored her lost sister for not taking her remarkable story to the tabloids. The TV titan introduced America to Patricia and her two children, Andre and Aquarius and teared up as she heaps praise on the family for not selling her out.

Winfrey desperately tries to maintain her TV cool as she tells viewers, "What is so remarkable to me about this story... (is) since I have been a person known in the public, there have been few times that I have been anywhere and not been sold out. There have been few times that you can bring anybody new into your life and not have that person in some way betray you or use you or take advantage of you. What is so extraordinary about Patricia and Andre and Aquarius is that they have known this secret since 2007."