Tears streaming down her face Barbara Winfrey takes stock and surveys the empty space inside the vast $1.4 million mansion.
The
66-year-old grandmother yesterday said goodbye to the impressive
five-bedroom property in Franklin, south Nashville – a place she has
called home for 14 years, and MailOnline captured the moments of her
emotional farewell exclusively.
She had until midnight to vacate the house after being booted out by talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.
Barbara was evicted following a bitter 18-month divorce battle with the star’s elderly father Vernon Winfrey.
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Moving on: Barbara Winfrey, the ex-wife of
Oprah's father Vernon, was booted out of her home by the talk queen
yesterday. Oprah 'gifted" the five -bedroom home to Vernon and Barbara
shortly after they married 14 years ago. But Oprah never really gave up
ownership and control of the own - and her father's finances
Real estate: Barbara doesn't know what Oprah
will do with the $1.4 million mansion. 'Oprah's a billionaire three
times over, her help live better than this,' says Barbara
And the former high-school
vice-principal – who is now homeless and facing the prospect of living
in motels – believes Oprah had a ‘personal vendetta’ against her and
deliberately tried to ‘destroy’ her life.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline an emotional Barbara said: ‘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.
‘Oprah’s a billionaire three times over, her help live 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.’
Barbara’s stinging attack is reinforced in bombshell legal documents seen by MailOnline and revealed for the first time today.
The legal papers claim Oprah took part in a ‘conspiracy’ to force her father to divorce Barbara and kick her out of her home.
The
chat queen is said to have attended ‘secret meetings’ with dad Vernon
during which they plotted to get Barbara out of the property.
Vernon has denied those claims.
Happier days: Oprah wrote 'Love & Blessings'
on this photograph of her and Barbara taken at the superstar's 50th
birthday party in Chicago in 2004. But Oprah hasn't shown her stepmother
much love in words or deed over the years, says Barbara
The lawsuit states that one took place on Mother’s Day in May 2012 - and Vernon filed for divorce just a month later.
Barbara
also alleges that Oprah was so intent on orchestrating the split that
she threatened to cut Vernon off financially unless he broke up with
her.
Vernon denies that his famous daughter has ever intervened or threatened to cut the trust.
The
claims are revealed in never before reported depositions made at
the height of Vernon and Barbara’s divorce battle, which lasted 18
months before being resolved.
In that time Barbara says she has learned the hard way not to cross her daughter-in-law.
A
world away from the inspirational figure who adorns our TV screens on a
regular basis, the Oprah Barbara describes is manipulative, high-handed
and the ‘devil’ incarnate, Barbara said in MailOnline's exclusive interview.
‘What she has done is nothing short of evil, but she doesn’t scare me, her actions cause me to disrespect her,’ says Barbara.
Vernon has let Barbara keep most of the furniture in the home, only taking a few items he wanted to keep.
‘We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on furniture, everything was high end,' she said.
..
'What she has done is nothing short of evil, but she doesn’t scare me'
- Barbara Winfrey
For
now the furniture will sit in storage and a mini grand piano which held
pride of place in the front room has been moved to a friend's house.
But
defiant Barbara vowed: ‘I’m leaving with less than I had before the
marriage, but eventually I’m gonna have a home as nice as this or
better.'
Barbara does get to keep her beloved Mercedes SL500, however.
Oprah bought her the luxury car as a gift 11 years ago during a shopping spree during a visit to Tennessee.
‘It’s got mine and her name on it so she can’t take my Mercedes,’ said Barbara.
‘It’s 11 years old with 125,000 miles on it so it won’t be worth much.’
While we talk, Barbara is perched on a high stool at the granite worktop in the mansion’s huge $60,000 kitchen.
The spacious five-bed, five bath property is on a sprawling private estate and set in its own woodland.
Scene from a marriage: Barbara and Vernon were
good together for a time. But things began to go sour after Barbara
discovered he cheated in his barber shop with a crack-addicted
prositiute called 'One Tooth'
It also boasts a library, billiards room, bar and wine cellar.
Barbara’s
pet dog Fluff, a Yorkie-poodle mix, yapped at the feet of the movers as
the house was systematically cleared of all furniture and belongings
and loaded into a U-Haul truck all day yesterday.
The former educator let out a deep sigh as she reflected on the move and the woman who has caused her so much heartache.
Barbara believes Oprah has taken ‘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, but to destroy them? To
take their money, to take their credit, take their property, I don’t
understand that, that’s evilness I can’t comprehend.’
In
a previous interview with MailOnline Barbara accused Oprah of helping
Vernon hatch an ‘escape plan’ to get out of their marriage and the
divorce depositions give unprecedented detail into how it apparently
worked.
Over hundreds of pages, the depositions and divorce proceedings lay bare the anatomy of a 14-year marriage gone awfully wrong.
Boxed in: Vernon is letting Barbara keep most of
the furniture they bought as a couple. She's putting those pieces and
other personal possessions in storage until she can find a place of her
own
Among her souvenirs: Movers help Barbara pack of her furniture and treasure from her marriage to Vernon
They
detail how Barbara imposed a three-year sex ban on Vernon, 81, after
obtaining a video of him having sex with a crack addicted prostitute
called ‘Ol’ one Tooth’ in his Nashville barbershop a couple of years
earlier.
Yesterday Barbara told MailOnline how she reacted to the shocking discovery.
‘It was disgusting and absolutely humiliating at the same time.
‘That
whole episode still hurts deep down. I always wanted to make the shop
nice, make it a better business, I never knew it had been a hang out
place for prostitutes.’
The
video – which Barbara has hidden in a safe place - purportedly shows
Vernon and a group of his friends receiving oral sex in turn from the prostitute while they sit in the barber's chair.
'After
I found out I couldn’t forgive, forgiving is something I have to do it
for myself. I never gave up, I just needed time to heal, but Vernon
wouldn’t give me time, he was selfish.’
In his deposition Vernon is apologetic about the incident.
He
said: ‘I just told her that I was in error, and I’m very sorry, worst
thing I’ve ever done since I’ve been married, and asked if she would
forgive me.’
Vernon also denies ever having any other sexual encounters with women behind his ex-wife’s back.
Embarrassingly, in her deposition, Barbara reveals another reason she refused sex was because Vernon took the Viagra pill.
Member of the wedding: Oprah didn't exactly
embrace Barbara Winfrey when she became part of the family. But she
certainly made a show of it in front of the camera, says Barbara, who
married Vernon Winfrey in Nashville on June 17, 2000. Oprah's long-time
love Stedman Graham was there too
Showtime: Oprah was front and center at her
father's wedding to Barbara. But behind the scenes Barbara says she and
her husband were often treated like second class citizens. At a gala at
Oprah's palatial home in Santa Barbara, the couple were seated far away
from celebrities in attendance and told not to socialize with them
She
said: ‘And Viagra will go on and on and on for hours. And at his age -
I knew he had had a stroke already, and I was not about to have this
man have a heart attack on me.’
In her deposition, Barbara rakes over Vernon’s bad habits, his sexism, his
drinking, bad hearing and the fact he’d spread private gossip about his
wife in his barbershop.
It also detailed the time when Vernon allegedly threatened to pull a gun on Barbara in their home.
She said she had returned home late one night and Vernon, who had been drinking, asked her where she had been.
When she replied, ‘I just went out,’ Vernon was less than pleased.
Barbara
said: ‘He said, I have a gun in my pocket. And he said, I will use it.
He started chasing me around the island in the kitchen.’
But
Vernon countered: ‘I’m standing here talking with my hand in my pockets
on the housecoat. I admit my gun was down here (indicating). But I
never attempted – she never saw the gun…I never pulled it out, that’s
why I never threatened her.’
'Viagra will go on and on for hours. I was not about to have this man have a heart attack on me’
In another incident Vernon allegedly threatened to push Barbara down the stairs, another claim he denies.
The depositions also reveal just how much Oprah, 60, has been supporting her father for much of his life.
In
January 1998 she set up a trust in Vernon’s name into which she paid
$1.9 million, giving Vernon annual payments of up to $176,000.
During his marriage to Barbara she gave her father another $1 million.
What should happen to the money became the focus of the divorce.
In
her deposition she is asked by Robert Davies, Vernon’s lawyer: ‘I want
you to tell me what you mean when you say Mr Winfrey has conspired with
his daughter and with (Vernon’s ‘adopted’ son) Thomas Walker to take
actions designed to deprive the wife of her equitable interest in their
marital property.
Precious cargo: Barbara's pooch Fluff, a Yorkie-poodle mix, sitting pretty
‘What
conspiracy are you telling the court about?’
Barbara replies that they
‘have secret meetings’ and points to one on Mother’s Day 2012 at the
Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, which is where she and Vernon were married.
Barbara said for that reason 'they specifically picked that hotel to send a message to me'.
She claims she asked to attend but she was rebuffed - and afterwards Vernon made a crucial admission.
Barbara
said: ‘He (Vernon) also said that his daughter (Oprah) - he said his
daughter told him that she would cut his trust money off if he did not
divorce me.’
It was only
after the Vernon said their marriage was over that Barbara started to
ask questions about what was going on, she says.
Under
questioning by Rose Palermo, Barbara’s attorney, Vernon is asked about
the Phoenix II trust, which was set up on June 27th 2012, two days after
he filed for divorce.
The trust is in the name of Thomas Walker, Vernon’s 'adopted' son, and is primarily to benefit him.
However
Palermo points out that the trustee ‘may distribute any amounts of the
principal (sum) as may be required for the health, support, and
maintenance of Vernon Winfrey’.
Trustee
Tolbert Chisum, a friend of Oprah and her long-time boyfriend Stedman
Graham, says that Barbara's 'first request' for a settlement for her
divorce from Vernon was $5 million.
Barbara then came back with a reduced request that was 'maybe a million, or half a million'.
Ultimately, Barbara says she came away with ‘absolutely nothing’ from the lengthy proceedings.
O: Copies of Oprah's magazine, are scattered about the house. Barbara had a subscription
Fame: A board with People magazine's first cover of Oprah hung in Barbara and Vernon's house. She got custody
To this Chisum replied that Oprah responded: 'Absolutely not. No settlement'.
Chisum admitted in the deposition that Oprah 'doesn't like' Barbara.
‘Oprah took it all, after 14 years I haven’t got a cent to show for it,’ she told MailOnline.
Asked why Oprah was so involved with something that was not directly to do with her, Chisum said: 'Because it is her father'.
Vernon
also revealed Oprah’s long-term partner Stedman Graham and close friend
Gayle King were charged with managing Vernon’s trust at various points in the
past.
In her first interview
with MailOnline when she received a notice that she had to leave her
home, Barbara revealed Oprah has extremely bizarre relationships with
Stedman and Gayle.
Oprah
began dating Stedman in 1986 but, according to Barbara, in all the
times she saw them together she never once witnessed them hold hands or
kiss.
Overwhelmed: Barbara claims in her deposition
that Oprah was so intent on orchestrating the split that she threatened
to cut Vernon off financially unless he broke up with her. Vernon denied
it
Such was suspicious
Oprah’s control over Stedman, Barbara claims, she had her security
detail follow him to keep tabs on his movements.
As for Gayle, Barbara says they are on the phone three, four times a day and rarely leave each other’s side when together.
She believes Oprah and Gayle's relationship is 'unhealthy'.
Vernon
and Barbara met in the 1990s whilst she was working as Vice Principal
at Brentwood High School, a respected public school in Nashville.
Vernon
ran a barber shop in a rundown area of East Nashville was a local
landmark – it has been there for more than 50 years – and was a
respected councillor and local figure.
After Vernon’s first wife died they got together but things turned ‘sour’ in 2007, seven years into their marriage.
Barbara
claims that by then she had got fed up with Vernon watching boxing
until 2am in their bedroom and staying out until 3am playing checkers
with his friends.
She also alleges that he drank too much, which Vernon denied, and was sexist, something Vernon does not dispute.
In
his deposition Vernon says: ‘Well, my complaints about it that - and I
have told Barbara several times that a lady has a place and a man has a
place.
‘But Barbara told me
that her place is wherever she wants to be. I could never make her
understand that there was a place for a lady and a place for a man.
‘As
a man, I'm supposed to be head of the house. But I was wearing the
britches or pants, but she was the head. She was running everything. I
didn't like that.’
Vernon
admitted that he had a love for the boxing and watched it in the
bedroom, but added: ‘It hadn’t bothered her for 10 or 11 years, but it
started bothering her.’
He also hit back at Barbara claiming she also vanished till late at night, sometimes dressed up and out till 10 or 11 at night.
Oldie but goodie: Barbara does get to keep her
beloved Mercedes SL500. Oprah bought her the luxury car as a gift 11
years ago during a shopping spree. It has 125,000 miles on it
He
said: ‘I’m wondering where she is that long. We got to arguing about it
when she got back…that’s hard on an old man with a young lady. I didn’t
know where she was going.’
For
her part, Barbara said that she had complaints about him saying that
she ‘didn't stay in my place’.
She said in her deposition: ‘I don't know
what that means. This is 2013.
‘Everything
else came before me. The barbershop people, the neighborhood people,
the church people, the family people, everybody came before his wife.
‘I was at the bottom of the list.’
In November last year a judge blamed Vernon for the split “on the grounds of adultery and inappropriate marital conduct.”
Donald
P. Harris, a Special Judge in the Tennessee Supreme Court, ordered him
to pay his ex-wife almost $70,000 in attorney fees.
During
proceedings it was revealed that Vernon gifted a property that he and
his wife had owned — free-of-charge - to another man.
Vernon
allowed it to go into foreclosure “knowing that it would be purchased
by his daughter… to defeat any interest of Barbara Winfrey.”
As
a result, Judge Harris penalized Vernon for his apparent scheming,
ordering that he be held liable for one of the pair’s loan accounts and
Barbara “be held harmless” because of his actions.
“Thus, the marital estate has a net value of $121,686,” the judge noted.
“The
court is of the opinion that each of the parties be awarded property
and indebtedness with a net value of $60,843. Vernon Winfrey is awarded
all the marital property except for the household furnishings located in
the marital residence.'
But
Barbara said: ‘Yes I got the furniture, but after I paid the attorney
fees, all the bills and expenses I didn’t have a dime left, no alimony,
nothing.’
It was not until November 2012, five months after the divorce had been
filed, that Barbara discovered that she would be evicted from her home.
Oprah
had bought the property with her money and so kept her name on the
title, meaning she was legally allowed to sell it.
Barbara claims that
to rub salt in the wound Oprah called her up and told her: ‘You say I
never talk to you?
‘I want to talk to you now. You have until Monday to
get out of MY house.’
As a result of Oprah’s actions Barbara now faces the ultimate humiliation - she must find a roof over her head.
Which
for an intelligent, university educated older woman who has had a
successful life, family and career cuts deep.
‘I’m homeless for now, but
I will stay at my daughter’s or at a friends, or even a motel if I have
to. I am a survivor,’ she said.
‘It
is difficult but you have to deal with what’s been dealt you, it’s just
stuff at the end of the day, you can’t take it with you.’
The
normally energetic gran says that while she is ‘exhasuted’ by the near
two year divorce battle but is glad it’s finally over.
‘I’ve been here a little over 14 years, this was mine and Vernon’s family home, she said.
‘But in a way today is a happy as well as a sad day.’
One door closes: I've come from nothing so I
know how to survive,' Barbara says. 'I'm trying to stay positive, it's a
new day for me'
She explains that what hurts most is the fact she ploughed so much time and energy into home-making for her husband.
Pointing
through the huge windows which let the light pour in Barbara said: ‘The
house was a gift, Oprah told us it was a gift to us, we were allowed to
pick it out, sign all the papers. We came to love this house.
‘Everybody keeps saying the divorce has been about the house, because it’s a million dollar property.
‘But
it’s not about just a house, to me it’s a home.
‘We had good memories,
bad memories, I have invested a lot of love and affection into it.’
Tears
welling up in her eyes as she recounts the past 14 years, Barbara
points to her beloved hydrangea flower bed and a yellow rose bush she
gently nurtured to maturity.
‘I
remember watching Oprah cook purple hull peas on the stove in the
kitchen, I remember cooking pound cakes for the family,' she said. 'We
had good times here.’
Surprisingly, Barbara still holds a flickering candle for her ex-husband and worries about his health.
Vernon lives alone in a $400,000 four bed home his celebrity daughter bought him in Nashville.
‘Vernon
and I are still friends, we speak on the phone once a week, but I can’t
go to see him, there are people watching,’ says Barbara.
‘But I feel so sorry for him, there’s no one looking after him.’
And
in a dig at Oprah she adds: ‘Why would you put your 81-year-old dad in a
four bedroom house to live by himself.’
Barbara says friends have
reported that Vernon is dirty, with long finger nails and in need of a
hair cut.
‘I worry about him cooking for himself or leaving the stove
on, I know how he was here, he’s had a stroke, he doesn’t process stuff
the way he used to, he has memory problems and hearing loss.
‘He’s an
old man, he needs someone to care for him.’
For now, Barbara must focus on her own future.
Without a home or a husband, she must scrape by on her teacher’s pension and her social security allowance.
She says she has some new business ventures underway and will plough her time into educating young people.
‘I’ve
come from nothing so I know how to survive,’ she says.
‘It gives me a
chance to get on with a new life. People may say, ‘what is a 66-year-old
woman talking about a new life for’, but that’s the way I am.
‘I’m
trying to stay positive, it’s a new day for me.'
