Oprah Winfrey to Piers Morgan: I contemplated suicide as pregnant teen, drank detergent

story by NY Daily News
written by Aliyah Shahid
photo by Vespa/Getty

Oprah Winfrey contemplated suicide when she became pregnant at the age of 14 and even tried to drink laundry detergent in attempt to terminate the pregnancy, she confessed Monday night.

"Getting pregnant was a result of bad choices, not having boundaries, sexual abuse from the time I was 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13," the talk show queen revealed during an interview on CNN’s "Piers Morgan Tonight."

Shortly after the pregnancy, Winfrey’s mother sent the young teen to live with her father in Nashville.

While explaining the strict rules of the household, her father -- not knowing his daughter was pregnant -- declared, "I would rather see a daughter of mine floating down the Cumberland River than to bring shame on this family and the indecency of an illegitimate child."

Fearful, Winfrey thought, "Before the baby was born, I’m going to have to kill myself," adding she did "stupid things like drinking detergent and all that kind of crazy stuff that you do when you’re trying to get attention, when you’re really just trying to cry for help."

In a past interview, Winfrey, now 56, said she "hid the pregnancy until my swollen ankles and belly gave me away." A few weeks later, her baby died in the hospital.

Looking back, Winfrey, who’s now a billionaire with her own cable network, said losing the baby who she "had no connection to whatsoever" was a blessing in disguise.

"When the baby died, I knew that it was my second chance," she said.

Winfrey also confessed she has no plans to tie the knot with her longtime partner, Stedman Graham.

"The reason this relationship has worked as well as it has is because we each got to define ourselves in it and not in a traditional form," she said. "... I am a different kind of woman in that I am pretty assured that had I married I wouldn't have remained married. I'm just not the marrying kind."