The Oprah Winfrey guide to politely avoiding your long lost ‘son’

Calvin Mitchell claims the star almost adopted him as a child. Unfortunately for him, Oprah has got a planet to save

 

High five? Oprah Winfrey outside the TV studio where she was accosted by Calvin Mitchell. Photograph: BEImage/Rex Shutterstock

Arousing salute to Oprah Winfrey, whose calm in the face of the madder extremes of her fandom is something to behold.

Leaving the studio after a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Oprah was greeted at the stage door by the usual clutch of fans and paparazzi, as well as a gentleman who claims to be the “secret son” she almost adopted when he was 11 years old. Calvin Mitchell reckons they met on the set of the 1993 TV movie There Are No Children Here, and that Oprah opened negotiations to take him off his mother’s hands, but that the deal eventually fell apart.

Mmmm. Calvin is Not Happy about this, by the way, and he recently related his yarn to the National Enquirer. Thereafter, he took the opportunity of his terrifying proximity to Oprah outside the Colbert show to apologise for any distress this choice of outlet might have caused.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he is said to have informed her across the security cordon. “It was the only way to get in touch with you.” As Oprah must harbour fears that Calvin’s face will be the last thing she sees before she dies, her response is a masterclass in keeping it light. “Honey,” she smiled. “I’m on my way to the United Nations right now, so I can’t talk to you.”

Majestic. We wish Oprah every success in managing the decline of the relationship, which I imagine has now been commuted to an annual exchange of restraining orders.