TV & VIDEO - May 22, 1989

Talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey has broken her silence, squelching a rumor that surfaced last week in the Chicago Sun-Times and was quickly picked up across the country. “When I first heard it, I thought it was so ridiculous that no one would possibly believe it,” Winfrey said of the gossip item, which alleged a tryst between her longtime beau Stedman Graham and hairdresser Andre Walker. “It is a vicious, malicious lie, and no part of it--absolutely no part--is true,” Winfrey told her studio audience Friday. “(The rumor) is vulgar, and I also believe it is evil.”