Oops! Oprah Gets Interrupted by a Blackout During Maya Angelou Stamp Unveiling: Watch Now!

Someone's in trouble for turning the lights out on Miss Winfrey!

By Brett Malec Apr 08, 2015 6:03 PMTags

Talk about bad timing!

While speaking at the Maya Angelou Forever Stamp unveiling yesterday at the Warner Theater in Washington D.C., Oprah Winfrey was caught in the dark when the lights suddenly turned off.

In a video of the blackout incident, the 61-year-old says, "And I'm honored to be here to stand as her daughter, sister, friend at the unveiling of the Maya Forever...Forever!" Then, all the lights suddenly turn off, interrupting Winfrey's speech with total darkness (we're talking pitch black here!).

You can then hear a tech person say, "We've lost power." Oops!

George Burns/Harpo Productions, Inc.

The blackout was later attributed to a widespread power outage that plagued the city Tuesday.

The new Maya Angelou Forever Stamp isn't just making headlines for its obvious significance (and the blackout). The stamp also features the quote "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." The problem is that the late poet wasn't the first to say this, the line actually first appeared in the 1967 children's book A Cup of Sun by Joan Walsh Anglund. However, the quote did inspire Angelou to write her most famous work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

USPS spokesman Mark Saunders explained their decision to use the quote by saying, "Maya Angelou cited this sentence frequently in media interviews and other forums and it provides a connection to her first memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."