Oprah Winfrey Remembers Longtime Makeup Artist Reggie Wells: “He Always Made Me Feel Beautiful”

Greg Evans

11 January 2024 at 1:58 pm·2-min read

Reggie Wells, an Emmy-winning make-up artist who, as Oprah Winfrey reflects “used his palette of talent to create beauty” on such celebrity clients as Michelle Obama, Beyoncé and Winfrey herself, died Monday in Baltimore, his hometown, following a lengthy illness. He was 76.

Wells’ death was announced by his family to the Baltimore Sun.

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“Reggie Wells was an artist who used his palette of talent to create beauty no matter the canvas,” Winfrey said in a statement to the press. “For many years he was my makeup artist. He called me and everyone he considered a friend ‘Mary.’ He always made me feel beautiful. Ooh my, how we’d laugh and laugh during the process. He was an astute observer of human behavior and could see humor in the most unlikely experiences.”

Winfrey was a Wells client for 30 years before Wells returned to his hometown of Baltimore in 2016 to be closer to his elderly father. In his later years Wells offered makeup makeovers to Black women residing at Weinberg Manor, senior living resident in Northern Baltimore.

Wells won a 1995 Daytime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Achievement In Makeup category. He was nominated four other times (1994, 2003, 2004 and 2006).

Born in Baltimore on December 2, 1947, Wells graduated from Baltimore City College and Maryland Institute College of Art and taught art before moving to New York City in 1976. There, according to the Sun, he worked at makeup counters before working with Glamour, Life and Harper’s Bazaar magazines. He was noticed by Winfrey while he was working at Essence magazine, and the then-Chicago-based talk show hired him as her makeup artist in 1990.

According to the Sun, Wells is survived by sisters, Priscilla Tingle, Patricia Banks and Orrie Wright. Funeral services are pending.

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