Oprah Winfrey's grandfather tried to strangle her grandmother in front of her.
Oprah Winfrey
The 67-year-old media mogul admitted she doesn't feel safe when she's sleeping because of a traumatic childhood memory of her and her grandma trying to flee the room when her grandpa turned violent during the night.
In an upcoming appearance on 'The Dr. Oz Show' shared with 'Entertainment Tonight', Oprah said: "My grandmother and I slept in the bed together. My grandfather was in a room on the other side of the wall and one night in the middle of the night, my grandfather gets out of bed and comes into the room.
"And I wake up and he has his hands around my grandmother's neck and she is screaming.
"She manages to push him off of her and step over him. He falls. She steps over him and runs to the front door. I run out of the bed with her. It's pitch black in the middle of the night in rural Mississippi.
"And she goes out on the porch and she starts screaming 'Henry, Henry.' There is an old man who lived down the road that we call Cousin Henry, he was blind."
Oprah grew visibly emotional as she continued the story, which was the first time she's ever spoken about it publicly.
She continued: "Cousin Henry comes down the road in the middle of the night to help my grandmother get my grandfather up off the floor. And after that my grandmother put a chair underneath the doorknob and some tin cans around the chair. And that is how we slept every night."
And the 'Wrinkle in Time' star admitted she has "always" slept with one ear open listening out for unwanted intrusion.
She said: "I'm sleeping, I always slept with, listening for the cans. Listening for what happens if that doorknob moves."
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