Vernon Winfrey, the father of media mogul Oprah Winfrey, has passed away at the age of 88. Oprah Winfrey took to Instagram to share the news on Saturday.
“Yesterday with family surrounding his bedside I had the sacred honor of witnessing the man responsible for my life, take his last breath,” Winfrey wrote.
“We could feel peace enter the room at his passing.”
Vernon Winfrey was a fixture in the greater Nashville area for nearly half of a century. He was a member of Nashville’s Metro City Council for 16 years and worked as a trustee for Tennessee State University. Most notably, he worked as a barber and owned his own shop on. Lischey Avenue in Nashville. Recently, Oprah Winfrey celebrated her father on his birthday by holding a barbecue and dedicating a barber’s chair to his career at the shop.
“Less than a week ago, we honored my father in his own backyard. My friend and gospel singer, Wintley Phipps, saluted him with a song. He felt the love and reveled in it until he could no longer speak,” Winfrey added.
At this time, the Winfrey family has not shared the cause of death.
