Oprah Winfrey Slams 'Adopted Son' Claims By Calvin Mitchell, Says She Paid For His Schooling But He Chose To Dropout

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, 61, has set the record straight over an incident in New York where she was ambushed by a young man claiming to be her adopted son. 

Winfrey spoke out against the alleged accusations of "abandonment" hurled at her by Calvin Mitchell, 35, who claims that he was looked after by her and her partner Stedman Graham for five years, saying Winfrey even offered to adopt him.

The "Selma" star was caught startled when Mitchell tried to confront her recently in New York as she left a building. Winfrey acknowledged Mitchell's presence, putting her hand against his chest to send him away while he attempted to talk to her, The Guardian reported.

According to the British publication, Mitchell had apologized to Winfrey across a security cordon when he first met her saying, "It was the only way to get in touch with you."

Winfrey addressed the issue during an interview with Entertainment Tonight, saying she appeared in a film titled "There Are No Children" in 1992 and met young Mitchell who  was cast as an extra.

 "A cute little sparkly-eyed boy came underneath the yellow tape to hand me a soda," Winfrey said describing the first time she met Mitchell on the set of her film which was shot in Chicago.

Taken up by the little boy, Winfrey and Graham decided to take Mitchell under their wing when they discovered that his mother had no job, and that his family lived in the projects.

Winfrey said she paid for him to attend a private school locally, while finding a job for his mother but Mitchell was expelled from the private school. She added she decided to give him another chance and enrolled him in a private boarding school in Mississippi, which she felt would be better for him.

Despite encouragement from Winfrey to stay in school, Mitchell left the boarding school as well. Winfrey said she told him if he refused to get an education, there would be no other school, that she could get him into having tried twice.

"If you leave this school, I am done. There is nothing else I can do," Winfrey said during the last conversation she had with Mitchell in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Winfrey attempted to get in touch with Mitchell, after her sudden run-in with him. However, she decided against it after learning that he had related the story to the tabloids.