CHICAGO (CBS) — Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey today revealed on her show that she recently learned that she has a sister named Patricia.

Winfrey made the announcement on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that aired Monday morning. Patricia lives in Milwaukee, Winfrey said.

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The woman says she had been searching for years for the identity of the mother who placed her for adoption in 1963. She says she learned in 2007 that Winfrey was her half-sister. On her program, Winfrey said she learned about Patricia last November.

Winfrey says the two met on Thanksgiving Day.

Even though she continually tried to reach Winfrey, Patricia never went to the media or otherwise publicized her discovery.

Patricia appeared on the show and explained that she felt it was important that she talk to Winfrey herself and not let someone else tell her. Oprah’s mother, Vernita Lee, gave birth to a girl but placed the baby for adoption because she couldn’t afford to raise her.

According to Winfrey, Lee later went back to the hospital looking for her baby girl.

“I always had a feeling that she didn’t mean to give me up,” an emotional Patricia said on the show.

Winfrey had been teasing her audience for about a week about a family secret that “shook me to my core.”

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