John Tesh recalls ‘uncomfortable’ backlash over ’70s romance with Oprah Winfrey

John Tesh is reflecting on his brief 1970s relationship with Oprah Winfrey and the backlash they faced as an interracial couple in the South.

Tesh, 73, said it was “very uncomfortable back then for an African-American woman and a very, very white guy” to be dating. He noted that their relationship was considered unusual in Nashville, Tennessee, where they worked at rival local TV stations.

Despite the social climate, he said they refused to let public reactions define their time together.

“It became a joke between us,” he told Page Six, “because we would work all day and then, like we really saw each other once a week, and she or I would say, ‘Hey, which restaurant do you want to empty tonight?'”

Tesh added that even early in her career, Winfrey stood out. “We all knew that she was something special,” he shared, noting that he loved it when they were assigned to cover the same stories. “It was like, ‘Okay, this makes this a lot of fun.”

The romance eventually fizzled as their careers pulled them in different directions. Winfrey later moved to Baltimore and Chicago, while Tesh relocated to New York and Los Angeles, where he became a longtime co-host of Entertainment Tonight.

Tesh left the show in 1996 to focus on music, composing the well-known “Roundball Rock” theme for NBA on NBC and building a successful concert career that has supported PBS programming.

Tesh married actress Connie Sellecca in 1992, while Winfrey has been in a long-term relationship with Stedman Graham since 1986.