Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham stepped out together for an unusually rare public appearance as Winfrey reunited with former colleagues from The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago. The gathering brought former Harpo Productions employees together 15 years after the daytime show ended and just weeks before the 40th anniversary of its debut.
Winfrey, 72, and Graham, 75, joined the celebration at Reunion by Chef Art Smith on Navy Pier. Entertainment Weekly reported that the longtime couple posed with Smith and took part in the reunion alongside Winfrey’s former coworkers and friends.
Winfrey and Graham, who have deliberately kept much of their four-decade relationship away from public events. PEOPLE reported that their previous joint appearance at a public event was the Tyler Perry Studios Grand Opening Gala in Atlanta in October 2019.
Winfrey herself was not originally expected at the Chicago gathering. Gayle King said Winfrey had been expected to be in South Africa, turning her arrival into a surprise for the former Harpo employees who had assembled for the reunion.
The Couple Hadn’t Attended a Public Event Together Since 2019
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Winfrey and Graham posed alongside Smith at the Chicago celebration, including a photograph of the trio holding a large platter of fried chicken. Television producer Jill Van Lokeren, who previously worked as a senior supervising producer on The Oprah Winfrey Show, shared photographs from the gathering and described Winfrey as the reunion’s surprise guest.
The appearance came nearly seven years after Winfrey and Graham attended the Tyler Perry Studios Grand Opening Gala together in Atlanta in October 2019.
Winfrey has previously explained that she became more selective about appearing publicly with Graham because each new photograph tended to generate another round of stories about their relationship.
Oprah Was a Surprise Guest at Her Own Reunion
The Harpo gathering was organized by former employee Ty Owens, and Winfrey said she heard that people who worked on the show were coming together and decided to make her way to Chicago.
Gayle King revealed on CBS Mornings that Winfrey had been expected to be in South Africa and was not supposed to attend. “So her showing up was a huge surprise,” King said. “Everybody was really surprised when she walked in the room.”
Winfrey thanked Owens for creating the reunion and praised her former Harpo staff. “I cannot even believe that as of next month, September 8, it will be 40 years since we first launched The Oprah Winfrey Show,” she told the group. “Thank you for being the greatest team ever.”
Chef Art Smith hosted the gathering at his appropriately named Reunion restaurant. Smith previously worked as Winfrey’s personal chef and appeared regularly on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Winfrey later responded to Smith’s social-media post by remembering when he once became frustrated while making fried chicken for only her and Graham. “You were destined for MANY!” she wrote. “And nobody does it better.”
The Show and Their Relationship Both Reach 40 Years in 2026
The Oprah Winfrey Show premiered nationally on September 8, 1986, and ran for 25 seasons before ending in May 2011. Winfrey and Graham also began their relationship in 1986, giving the couple and the television series that defined much of her career matching 40-year milestones.
The two became engaged but ultimately decided against marriage. In a 2020 essay, Winfrey wrote that after accepting Graham’s proposal, she realized she wanted to know he wanted to marry her but did not actually want marriage itself. “I realized I didn’t actually want a marriage. I wanted to be asked,” she wrote.
Winfrey said she did not want the “sacrifices, the compromises, the day-in-day-out commitment required to make a marriage work” and that both she and Graham believe they would not still be together had they married. She has described their relationship instead as a “spiritual partnership,” saying it works because they share important values while maintaining identities and purposes beyond their relationship.