OPRAH WINFREY might have been a mortician’s wife if it hadn’t been for her meddling father!
And the TV titan’s 80-year-old father is still feuding with Oprah’s first love, William “Bubba” Taylor, whose family runs a funeral home in Tennessee, where Oprah once lived.
“I never liked William,” Vernon Winfrey told The ENQUIRER. “We called him ‘Bubba,’ and from the beginning I was suspicious because I thought he was too old for Oprah. She was only 19 at the time.
“But I also didn’t want Oprah to get too serious about Bubba and have children with him.”
Vernon made circular “crazy” motions with his finger near his temple as he continued: “I told her, ‘Gal, you do not want to have kids with that man. Look at his family. You can do better.’”
Oprah fell hard for William, but their relationship came to an abrupt end after three years when she moved to Baltimore to pursue her television career.
And when “CBS This Morning” show host Gayle King made a comment about how Oprah could have ended up “a mortician’s wife” on a recent broadcast, The ENQUIRER tracked down William.
Now 65, Oprah’s former beau opened up about his relationship with her in an exclusive interview.
“We met at my church and got pretty serious,” William recalled. “I knew Oprah wanted to get married, but she also knew I didn’t want to talk about marriage. I was only 27 years old and getting married was not on my mind.
“But we did talk about her passion and that one day she was going to be ‘great.’ We often talked for hours about our futures right here on the porch of the funeral home.
“When it came time for her to move to Baltimore, I drove her there and helped her unpack. But we both agreed I would not make the move with her because I was in my family business, and she needed to be in a bigger television market.”
A close source added: “Oprah hoped William would ask her to marry him. But he broke it off after Oprah’s dad Vernon put his two cents in.
“The bitter family feud broke up the young lovers, and it seems the bitter feelings remain after all these years.”
The source revealed that William hasn’t spoken to Oprah or Vernon in more than 30 years – even though Vernon’s barbershop is just 10 miles from the funeral home William owns in Nashville!
While William didn’t want to dredge up his past issues with Vernon, Oprah’s dad wasn’t shy about sharing HIS feelings!
“I’m so happy Oprah listened to me,” he said. “After she left for Baltimore, I never saw or heard about Bubba again.”
Despite the bad blood between Vernon and William, he had nothing negative to say about his now 58-year-old former flame, who went on to meet her current beau, Stedman Graham, in 1986.
“I don’t have any regrets,” William told The ENQUIRER. “But I often wonder what our lives would have been like if we had stayed together.”
