Well, a warm Oprah touch could send anybody to the stars. Literally. Thus, Sam Perry’s road to fame began at Tuesday’s rally for President-elect Barack Obama, when Oprah Winfrey wept on his shoulder. The moment made people talk, newspapers write and reports circulate. Who is the Mystery Man and why is Oprah crying on him?

The secret was revealed on Friday, during Oprah’s live show.

After the TV host asked Mr. Man (aka Sam Perry) to stand up, the man stepped forward and hugged Oprah, as if they had been friends forever. Winfrey subsequently apologized for failing to ask Perry’s name at the rally in Grant Park and for dubbing him Mr. Man.

Throughout the Tuesday event, networks offered close-ups of Oprah leaning on the man whose identity was not known and showed her shedding tears of joy on his shoulder.

So, in order to answer all of your questions, here you have it: Sam Perry proved to be a Silicon Valley investor who had served as a communications director for the Barack Obama campaign in California.

Winfrey’s friend, Gayle King, even asked Sam Perry during Friday’s show whether he wanted to take the media mogul off him. “When Oprah first leaned on you, did you want to say, ‘Hey, get off of me?’” King asked. However, Sam Perry said that such a thing had not even crossed his mind and joked that he was happy that the moment was caught on film, as he had thus avoided trouble at home (with his wife).