Winfrey 'stunned' by father's planned bio about her youth

Another book project about Oprah Winfrey is in the works and the influential talk show host said she was "stunned" to learn that it's her father who will pen it.

Winfrey said she was "upset" to learn from an assistant that her father, Vernon Winfrey, was writing a book about her youth.

"I won't say devastated, but I was stunned," the successful daytime host told the New York Daily News in a story published Tuesday.

Winfrey told the paper that she laughed when an assistant recently told her that a newspaper had called asking about her father's book.

When she called him to ask about it, "it turned out he is writing a book. The worst part of it was him saying, 'I meant to tell you I've been working on it,' " she told the Daily News.

A spokeswoman for Winfrey's company, Harpo Productions, refused to comment further.

Vernon Winfrey owns a barber shop and beauty salon in Nashville, where he helped raise his now-famous daughter.

The talk show host said her father had accompanied her on one of her recent trips to Africa and added that they talk often and have a good relationship.

This latest book project follows biographer Kitty Kelley's announcement last Decemberthat Winfrey would be her next subject.

Kelley has developed a reputation for dishing dirt on celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Bush family and Nancy Reagan in her unauthorized, tell-all biographies.