Were John Tesh And Oprah Winfrey An Item?
“Cub reporters” were they, John Tesh and Oprah Winfrey, back in Nashville, TN. As revealed in the New York Daily News recently, he and the queen of all talk shows were “an item” back in the 1970s. This was before the days of payday loans, long before Oprah could bathe in piles of money. It was a time of big hair, shag carpeting and an interracial love that dare not speak its name in America, particularly then.
John Tesh is 6-foot-6, musical and white
But this really isn’t his story. Infamous unauthorized celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley has written a book about Oprah, revealing the relationship between John Tesh and Oprah Winfrey saying they were “live-in lovers” in Nashville. How this failed to make it into the Robert Altman film is a mystery, but the Daily News was captivated by Kitty Kelley’s brand of intrigue enough to “break” the story. Considering the fact this author has been praised for her courageous writing on popular culture” and “outstanding service to writers and the writing profession,” what else should the American public expect? Kitty Kelley’s book “Oprah” hits shelves tomorrow.
Imagine the dancing, the piano and the severe height mismatch
Apparently, for Oprah and John Tesh, ebony and ivory was the flavor. However, Kelley claims that Tesh couldn’t take the “social pressure” of being in an interracial relationship, so he “bolted in the middle of the night.” Bolted in the middle of the night? Doesn’t this sound like something you would only find in a Danielle Steele book? Whatever happened, neither John Tesh nor Oprah is saying much, if anything. Tesh admitted to the Daily News the he and Oprah dated. Oprah, on the other hand, supposedly revealed in a 1996 episode of her television program that she had “one platonic dinner date” with the hulking New Age musician who perhaps could’ve used car loans back in the days of groovyness.
Not Oprah’s first interracial relationship
It may have seemed platonic, different than her alleged fling with John Tesh, but Oprah also dated famous Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert. This was during the 1980s, when the hair wasn’t quite as big but still larger than life. On her 20th anniversary special Winfrey revealed that Ebert convinced her to take her show into syndication, a move that Ebert admits was a huge boost to his own rep.
Oprah and Ebert went on two dates, one of them to see the Count Basie Orchestra. That’s a better brand of music than the types John Tesh is in to, no doubt, and John Tesh would probably say the same.