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Vernon Winfrey

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The Resume

    (January 31, 1933-July 8, 2022)
    Born in Greenville, Mississippi
    Father of Oprah Winfrey
    Barber and former coal miner
    Nashville Metro City Councilman from 1975 to 1991

Why he might be annoying:

    His ex-wife, Barbara, alleged that he was abusive and had even once pointed a gun at her.
    He admitted in divorce filings to cheating on Barbara with a prostitute named ‘Old One Tooth.’
    Barbara also alleged that he had been blackmailed by another woman over a sordid sex tape.
    He was the only immediate member of Oprah’s family to grant unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley an interview, angering both his daughter and Gayle King.
    Kelley put forward the claim that he was not Oprah’s biological father, but was merely listed as the father by mother Vernita Lee.
    Oprah herself is said to have privately doubted that she was his daughter (reportedly refusing to believe that ‘such a silly man could make such a magnificent creature’).
    Barbara randomly claimed that whenever she and Vernon would visit Oprah at her Chicago condo, his daughter would get on the intercom and start yelling: ‘Negroes in the house! Negroes in the house!’

Why he might not be annoying:

    He assumed the responsibility of parenting Oprah even as there were doubts about whether he was her true father.
    When Oprah was sent by her mother to live with him as a wayward teen, he helped her to turn her life around.
    He ran his own barber shop in Nashville for nearly 50 years.
    Like his daughter, he was a huge Obama supporter, and had a framed picture of the President on the wall of his shop.
    He traveled with Oprah to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela in 2005, and during her speech, she asked him to stand up and called him the person who made her who she was today.
    The week before his death, Oprah gifted him with a surprise barbeque and an engraved barber’s chair, calling it ‘Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Day.’
    In 1986, Oprah said of him: 'If I hadn't been sent to my father (when I was 14), I would have gone in another direction.'

Credit: BoyWithTheGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 11 Votes: 81.82% Annoying