Oprah_ A Biography Part 20

Onstage at Manhattan's Metropolitan Pavilion the night of April 17, 2000, Oprah introduced Gayle to a teeming crowd of alpha females (Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Martha Stewart, Rosie O'Donnell, Maria Shriver, Diana Ross, Tina Turner), saying, "I'm known to be a good gift-giver. You've read rumors. It's true....Over the years I've given Gayle a lot of great gifts." She then regaled the crowd in a Southern singsong voice. "I gave Gayle her nanny when she had her first chile, and then her second chile; we got extra hailp. I built the swimmin' pool for the children." The audience roared. "Paid for the children's private schools. Bought her a BMW for da birthday." The audience laughed as Oprah catalogued her largesse and her friend's indebtedness. Adopting a meek little voice to imitate Gayle, she continued, "Oh, I just don't know, I don't know what I can ever do to repay you. The children, we can never repay you. There's nothing we can do to repay you." The punch line came after Gayle quit her job in Hartford, started commuting to the Hearst offices in New York to help launch Oprah's magazine, and began working so hard that she finally said, "b.i.t.c.h, I don't owe you nothing!" The audience screamed with laughter.

While Oprah had a live-in male partner, she seemed to spend more time with Gayle, and she talked about her best girlfriend at every turn, providing for her and her children in a way few men ever could. Oprah moved Gayle to New York City to take over O O magazine, bought her a $7.5 million apartment in Manhattan in addition to her magazine, bought her a $7.5 million apartment in Manhattan in addition to her $3.6 million house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and traveled the world with her, sometimes with Stedman in tow, sometimes not.

Part of Oprah's strong fan base was in black churches, where traditional marriage between a man and a woman is honored. As one of their own, Oprah was a s.h.i.+ning example to the world of African American achievement, and few would ever publicly criticize her, but there were murmurs among some black ministers that, despite her grand success, Oprah was not the best role model for young African American girls. For whatever reason, she was not prepared to make the commitment to marriage: "I can choose not to be married, if I want," she said, opting for the comfort and acceptance of being a couple in a coupled society. Yet her living situation with Stedman, her close friends.h.i.+p with Gayle, and her departure from the church in which she was raised made some in the black community wonder about her s.e.xual moorings. While Oprah denied being a lesbian, she seemed to deliberately provoke discussion of her s.e.xuality by issuing bizarre denials to questions no one asked, as if she wanted to stir publicity.

This became particularly noticeable in 2006, when O, The Oprah Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, devoted an issue to friends.h.i.+p and featured a Q&A t.i.tled "Oprah and Gayle Uncensored,"

which kicked off another furor of gay rumors: Q: Well, let's get right to it! Every time I tell somebody, "I'm interviewing Oprah and Gayle," the response is always the same: "Oh [long pause] are they...you know...together?"

OPRAH: You're kidding. People are still saying that?

Q: Every single person...

OPRAH: I understand why people think we're gay. There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it--how can you be this close without it being s.e.xual? How else can you explain a level of intimacy where someone always always loves you, loves you, always always respects you, admires you? respects you, admires you?

GAYLE: Wants the best for you.

OPRAH: Wants the best for you in every single situation of your life.

GAYLE: The truth is, if we were gay, we would so tell you, because there's nothing wrong with being gay.

OPRAH: Yeah. But for people to still be asking the question when I've said it and said it and said it, that means they think I'm a liar. And that bothers me....I've told nearly nearly everything there is to tell.

It was the nearly nearly in Oprah's response that jumped out, drawing media attention in Oprah's response that jumped out, drawing media attention and giving comedians a field day. In his nightly monologue, David Letterman mentioned that Oprah had denied she was gay. "I hear that and I go hmmmmm...." At the American Museum of the Moving Image tribute to Will Smith, Jamie Foxx said, "I was talking about you the other day. I was lying in bed with Oprah, and I turn over to Gayle and I say, 'You know what?' " When Kathy Griffin went on Larry King Live, Larry King Live, he asked, "Do he asked, "Do you think we're ready for a gay president?" She said, "I'd love it. By that, I a.s.sume you mean Oprah. I tease, Larry. I know we're scared of her. Oprah, first lesbian president.

Gayle, lesbian vice president. Just a thought. I'm not outing anybody."

The rumors that dogged Oprah probably said more about society's need to define people s.e.xually and the discomfort many feel about those who do not fit a prescribed definition of heteros.e.xual or h.o.m.os.e.xual. The category of bis.e.xual is too fraught for most people, although Oprah introduced the subject with a show on "s.e.xual fluidity,"

showing women past the age of forty who left their men for other women without necessarily defining themselves as lesbians. She said she understood the resistance to such labeling. After interviewing the evangelist Ted Haggard about the gay s.e.x scandal that forced him to resign as pastor of the New Life Church, she told her audience, "I got [i.e., understood] him as not wanting to be labeled--not wanting to be put in a box."

Throughout the Haggard interview, though, she made a point of saying she did not agree with him that s.e.xuality is complex and complicated. "I am heteros.e.xual," she stated. "I don't know what it would be like to have that inclination [to the same s.e.x], but I have many friends who are gay." Even admitting to having h.o.m.os.e.xual friends was a big step forward for the young woman who once thought h.o.m.os.e.xuality was a sin and who told her brother, who died of AIDS, that he would not go to Heaven because he was gay. Still, Oprah was so sensitive to the lesbian rumors surrounding her that she would not allow two women in her employ at Harpo to publicly declare their relations.h.i.+p, although they had been living together for several years. In other words, she seemed to say: It's okay to be gay, as long as I'm not tainted by it.

Perhaps Oprah's enthusiasm for her female friends was misinterpreted by those who made a.s.sumptions because they were looking through a prism of lesbian rumors and gave her comments far more weight than she intended. For instance, shortly after Liz Smith's blind item and Oprah's cameo as the therapist who gently urged Ellen to come out, Oprah and her camera crew went on tour with Tina Turner in 1997, to Houston, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. "We followed her around the country because I wanted to be Tina," Oprah said. Instead, she became Tina's most famous groupie. Besotted with the rocker's personal story of survival, Oprah wore a blond-frosted Tina Turner wig, performed with her onstage, and gushed about her on the air the way she used to burble about Stedman when they first started dating. "Tina is our G.o.ddess of rock 'n' roll....She is just the hottest....I feel about Tina how men feel about football," Oprah said, giving rise to a rash of comments about a "girl crush." She told Vibe Vibe magazine that the most fun she magazine that the most fun she has is "when me and Stedman and the dogs are in the Bentley and the top's down. And I'm wearing my Tina Turner wig, holding on to make sure it doesn't come off. That is a cool thing--the whole idea of it." Stedman finally told her to lose the wig. "n.o.body's telling you that you are not Tina Turner, so I have to be the one to tell you. Take the wig off and stop pretending that you are Tina Turner." Oprah gave the wig to a cousin.

Shortly after the tour, Oprah sat down with Jamie Foster Brown of Sister 2 Sister Sister 2 Sister, a black entertainment magazine. The article was t.i.tled "Everything Negroes Ever Wanted to Ask Oprah." During the interview Stedman telephoned, and Brown reported Oprah's side of the conversation: "Now Oprah starts talking about the Liz Smith column that said a prominent [television] person who is an icon is gay. Oprah had sent out a press release saying she wasn't gay," Brown wrote, before quoting what Oprah said to Stedman: "No. Right. Okay, honey. So you're gonna tell them no? Whatever. I already sent out a press statement. Just say, 'I think she said it all.' Why can't you say that? You can say, 'I'm sick of this. We're so sick of this gay stuff.' Why does everybody want to think you're gay? Okay. Bye."

"So Oprah," asked Jamie Foster Brown. "Are you gay?"

Oprah laughed. "I think if you're gay, that's fine; it's your business and it's fine.

But what offends me about anybody implying that I'm gay or Stedman is gay is this: that means that everything I've done or said is a sham....It means it's a lie. The whole thing's a lie. It would mean that everything you've ever done or said, the whole thing is one great, big, faked-up lie."

Despite such denials, speculation persisted over Oprah's s.e.xual preferences. She continued living with Stedman, but they maintained separate lives, which they said was necessary because of their careers. They came together for occasional weekends, holidays, and vacations. "This is what our life is like," Oprah explained to one writer. "I call it two s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing." She made a loud tooting noise. "We just check at the beginning of the week: " 'Where are you gonna be?' I say. 'Okay, I'm going to Maya's this weekend.'

"[He says:] 'Well, I'm gonna be in Colorado Springs.'

" 'When do you think you'll be home? Sunday? Okay. Could you take an early plane and get here Sunday afternoon? Maybe we can have dinner together.' That's what our life is like.

" 'Where are you gonna be?' 'I'm gonna be gone for the summer....I'll try to get a house on the weekends so you can come up...and see me and the dogs.' "

To some, Stedman looked like Oprah's cover story--the presentable male partner she needed to be accepted by heteros.e.xual society, nothing more than camouflage. Her close friends argued otherwise, saying he was the grounding force of her life. Others did not care one way or the other. "I would not be surprised if Oprah is gay," said her friend Erica Jong. "If she is, she is. It certainly fits. Stedman is probably gay or neutral, but they have a bond because of where they come from. Her being gay would be the right reaction to the s.e.xual abuse she says she's suffered and the mistrust she's always had of men.

Remember, many people don't want to be outed, and I don't think everyone needs to declare themselves publicly. Besides, people, mostly women, can slide easily from one s.e.xual preference to the other. If Oprah is gay, I can understand that she does not want that fact known in a society that is h.o.m.ophobic and might judge her negatively. As a businesswoman, to declare herself publicly as a lesbian might be detrimental."

During their interview Jamie Foster Brown asked Oprah, "How important is s.e.x?"

Oprah said, "It's a natural part of the process. I mean I'm not one of those women who feels like I gotta have it all the time....I wouldn't consider myself a very s.e.xual being."

Some who knew Oprah well during her Baltimore years agreed with her a.s.sessment, speculating that her tormented four-year love affair with Tim Watts, who was married at the time, plus seriously involved with another woman when he was seeing Oprah, had so blindsided her that she was wrung out, emotionally and s.e.xually, and never able to make herself vulnerable to any man again. Instead, she poured all her s.e.xual energies into her career. Her conflict over submission and control found its resolution in her work, and soon the investment of time and energy in herself became its own reward, and her own survival.

With the retirement of Phil Donahue and the growing prestige of her book club, Oprah's show became the first stop for celebrities who wanted to promote their films, their alb.u.ms, their tours, and themselves. She increased her star shows in 1996, but got off to a rocky start when she covered the red carpet for the Sixty-eighth Annual Academy Awards.

"The moment you realized it was going to be a long show [was] when a starstruck Oprah Winfrey acted as if she'd never handled a microphone or asked a question before in public," wrote the TV critic for the Hartford Courant. Hartford Courant.

"Hey, Brad [Pitt]! Oh, gosh. It's great to see you."

"Nicolas [Cage], hey! Great to see you!"

"Ron [Howard]! Hi, Ron. How are you? How are you? It's a long way from Mayberry."

"Hi, Jimmy [Smits]. We wanted to say, on behalf of all my friends, you're a babe, and we don't mean the pig. How cool is he? Oh!"

The critic from The Buffalo News The Buffalo News said the first misstep of the evening was "the said the first misstep of the evening was "the decision to have Oprah Winfrey fawn over celebrities as they entered the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. 'Oh my G.o.d, Elisabeth [Shue]. What a year.' 'To die for [Nicole Kidman], that's what you look like.' OhmyG.o.d, indeed. There hasn't been anything this embarra.s.sing since, well, since Letterman opened last year's show with his 'Uma, Oprah'

bit."

A British critic even took a whack at what Oprah wore. "The worst-dressed woman of the evening [was] Oprah Winfrey," wrote Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian, The Guardian, "...in a decollete, backless dress that still contrived to have sleeves and shoulders." After viewing her role as the official greeter at the Oscars, Howard Rosenberg, TV critic of the Los Angeles Times, recommended, "Um, maybe she should keep her day job." recommended, "Um, maybe she should keep her day job."

Oprah was more comfortable and in control in her own setting, with producers to prepare her, stylists to dress her, soft lights to frame her, and, most important, an audience to applaud her. What the critics did not appreciate was that she was not a journalist, she was a saleswoman, and like her twenty million viewers, she, too, was agog over celebrities. She brought them all to her stage with gus.h.i.+ng introductions, conveyed with whoops and hollers, before she sat them down to wheedle out the most intimate details of their personal lives.

"We want to believe you are running Annette's bathwater on a regular basis and dropping rose petals along the side so she can...you know, whatever," she said to Warren Beatty.

"We have our moments," he said.

Oprah pressed. "You have your moments."

Beatty smiled. "We have our moments."

George Clooney told her, "I'm never going to get married"; Eddie Murphy said he preferred black women to white women; Kate Winslet said she was never going to have plastic surgery: "Why would I want to look like a wrapped t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e?" Britney Spears said she was "going to try" to remain a virgin until marriage; and Diane Keaton said shoes were her favorite accessory because "they're p.e.n.i.s subst.i.tutes." Bicycling with Lance Armstrong around her estate in Montecito, Oprah asked, "How come your b.u.t.t doesn't get sore?" She asked Jim Carrey, "Why do you think you are good at s.e.x?" She asked Janet Jackson about her pierced nipples. "At any given moment of the day," said the singer, "a lot of it [body piercing] can be very s.e.xual."

Oprah told Cybill Shepherd, "You can say p.e.n.i.s p.e.n.i.s and and v.a.g.i.n.a v.a.g.i.n.a on this show." So on this show." So Shepherd proceeded to do so as she discussed her love affair with Elvis Presley. "A few things he had to be taught; he liked to get himself a big plate of chicken-fried steak, but there was one thing he wouldn't eat."

The audience gasped. "Did you teach him?" asked Oprah.

"I sure did."

When Lisa Marie Presley appeared on the show Oprah asked her why she had married Michael Jackson. "Was it a consummated marriage?" Again, the audience gasped, but Oprah admonished them. "You all d.a.m.n well know you want to know."

"Yes," said Lisa Marie. "It was."

Oprah invited Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes to discuss their movie about drag queens ( To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar). "I want to hear about the gender-benders," she said, "because how did you tuck in the p.e.n.i.ses? How did you keep them down--the peni? I mean--oh, G.o.d--is the gender-bender the same as a jock strap? Is it...sort of the same thing?"

"Sort of," said Swayze, "but it just yanks the other way."

"Yeah," said Snipes, "it's like a sock."

Despite her predilection for the risque, Oprah dropped basketball's bad boy Dennis Rodman from her show because she said his book, Walk on the Wild Side, Walk on the Wild Side, was was too raunchy. "After reading the book, I did not feel that it was appropriate for my viewers," she said.

Over the years The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show became a Mecca for celebrities: Ben became a Mecca for celebrities: Ben Affleck, Kirstie Alley, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Lynda Carter, Cher, Bill Cosby, Kevin Costner, Billy Crystal, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Cameron Diaz, P. Diddy, Robert Downey, Jr., Clint Eastwood, Michael J.

Fox, Richard Gere, Robin Givens, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks, Florence Henderson, Julio Iglesias, Michael Jordan, Ashton Kutcher, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Lucci, Paul McCartney, Matthew McConaughey, George Michael, Bette Midler, Demi Moore, Mike Myers, Paul Newman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt, Sidney Poitier, Lionel and Nicole Richie, Chris Rock, Diana Ross, Meg Ryan, Brooke s.h.i.+elds, Jessica Simpson, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Steven Spielberg, Jon Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Luther Vandross, Denzel Was.h.i.+ngton, Robin Williams, Stevie Wonder, Tiger Woods, and Renee Zellweger. They all understood that by appearing with Oprah they would be safe, secure, and swaddled--able to sell their shows, films, records, products, and, most important, themselves.

Wynonna Judd came to talk about her weight; Julia Roberts announced she was pregnant with twins; Madonna denied she'd adopted a baby from Malawi as a publicity stunt. Later, in reviewing all the celebrities she knew, Oprah told her audience, "Celine Dion, Halle Berry, and John Travolta really became friends of mine." She interviewed Tom Cruise nine times over the years and gave an entire hour to reuniting the cast of The The Mary Tyler Moore Show because, as she said, "I wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore." because, as she said, "I wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore."

"My wife [Academy Award-winning actress s.h.i.+rley Jones] and I did the Oprah Oprah show a couple of times," recalled Marty Ingels from his home in Beverly Hills. "Once was: 'Couples Who Have Some Secret to Hide.' We were on with Jayne Meadows and Steve Allen. She found him in bed [with another woman]. Blew us away...I made a big mistake by trying to kid around with Oprah. I said, 'C'mon, Oprah. You don't like Jews.

You won't let me talk.' Whoa. Big mistake. Apparently, she's been accused of being antiJew--Anyway, we never got on again and here's the reason: we didn't get paid by Oprah."

Ingels explained that according to AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), all performers are to be paid a minimum fee ($537 in 1997) for their appearances, whether or not they perform, but Oprah claimed to have a special arrangement with the local union and didn't pay anyone. Ingels demanded an investigation by AFTRA. "It's wrong that this billionaire lady should make her own rules different from any other talk show....Why should she walk over her fellow performers?

It's chicken feed to her, but some actors rely on that occasional check. For her to screw them is not right....Is it a mortal sin? No. But it's small and nasty and told me something petty and mean about her. I remember her once saying control is owners.h.i.+p....Despite her reputation as St. Oprah she's really all about money....Yeah. s.h.i.+rley finally got her check and so did all the other people who hadn't been paid, because I called The Hollywood The Hollywood Reporter and got publicity over the matter. And that's what Oprah didn't want. Publicity. and got publicity over the matter. And that's what Oprah didn't want. Publicity.

That's a big disinfectant."

One of the biggest celebrity "gets" for The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show was not a was not a member of AFTRA but could have used the $537 check, after being shortchanged by the House of Windsor in her divorce. Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of York, was better known as Fergie, a name inextricably linked to the phrase "toe sucking" because of photos taken of her with her lover, which led to the dissolution of her marriage to the queen's favorite son, Andrew, Duke of York.

"Oprah almost lost that interview because her producers insisted that Sarah appear on the show wearing a tiara," said an ABC executive involved in the negotiations.

"Oprah's producers do Oprah-speak: 'Oprah wants,' 'Oprah says,' 'Oprah insists.' On this issue Oprah was really really adamant. adamant.

" 'Oprah thinks it would be quite royal.'

" 'No way,' said Sarah's publicist.

" 'No tiara, no interview,' said Oprah's producers.

"This bubbled up into a real crisis," said the network executive. "Oprah's producers were dead serious about the tiara and pushed until Sarah's publicists almost canceled. There were two days and nights of high-level fits around here....Finally Oprah's side gave in and Sarah appeared on the show to promote her book--without a tiara."

The disgraced d.u.c.h.ess was as close as Oprah ever came to interviewing British royalty. She had met Diana, Princess of Wales, in April 1994, when she lunched with her at Kensington Palace. "We had an honest and fun conversation when I came over for BAFTA," said Oprah. (The British Academy of Film and Television Awards had named The Oprah Winfrey Show "Best Foreign TV Program.") "I found her so charming, but she "Best Foreign TV Program.") "I found her so charming, but she wasn't interested in doing an interview, so I didn't push it." After their lunch, the princess, still married to the Prince of Wales, sent Oprah a black-and-white photo of herself signed simply "Diana x" in a sterling-silver frame monogrammed with the initial D. D. She later She later gave her tell-all interview to the British broadcaster Martin Bas.h.i.+r.

"The Princess chose him over Oprah because she felt she'd make more impact in Britain with a flags.h.i.+p programme such as Panorama, Panorama, and because it was the BBC," said and because it was the BBC," said Diana's former butler Paul Burrell in an email. "Martin Bas.h.i.+r also promised her full control. It was nothing to do with Oprah and everything to do with [Diana's] focus on the British market and sending out her deliberate message to the British people. It was a carefully managed event and the location/context was upper-most in her mind."

When Sarah Ferguson first appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show she was she was promoting her book My Story, My Story, which touched on her conviction that Buckingham Palace which touched on her conviction that Buckingham Palace had plotted to destroy her. She appeared a year later as a spokesperson for Weight Watchers and mentioned moving back in with Prince Andrew. She drew audible gasps from the audience when she discussed how she and her ex-husband shared the same house with their two daughters and accommodated each other's liaisons, a t.i.tillating revelation that gave Oprah the kind of news coverage she and her producers craved.

Oprah's producers were known to make outrageous demands of guests. "If she wants you on her show, her producers possess your life for weeks beforehand, and you and your family and your friends must be available twenty-four hours a day every day that they want you," said a publis.h.i.+ng executive who has booked many authors on The The Oprah Winfrey Show. "If it's three weeks, then you must be available morning, noon, and "If it's three weeks, then you must be available morning, noon, and night for twenty-one days, but it's usually well over a month of your time. Her producers want the most intimate look at your life imaginable, and sometimes they go to places that can be considered exploitive, invasive, and quite painful. For example, Oprah's producers wanted Elizabeth Edwards [the wife of former senator John Edwards] to take them to the spot in the road where her son had been killed. Her publicists demurred. 'I don't think that will work,' they said, not even checking with Elizabeth....Harpo producers root through everything, but the end result is not 'gotcha' television. Oprah is not about that. Rather, she wants to give her audience a personal experience they cannot get anywhere else, and of course most people agree to her demands because they want to get on her show."

There was one guest of whom absolutely nothing was demanded but his handsome presence. "I was really thrilled about John F. Kennedy, Jr.," said Oprah. "We had been asking and asking to have him on so many times, and this time he called us. I think he agreed to do it because it was convenient." Oprah cut short her vacation to fly back to Chicago in August 1996 to tape the interview when Kennedy was in town for the Democratic National Convention. She even ordered two new chairs for her set, but after the white upholstery got lint all over Kennedy's suit she had them re-covered in leather.

Four years after he was killed piloting his plane, Oprah sold "the chairs that John F.

Kennedy, Jr., sat in" in a charity auction on eBay for $64,000.

At the time of the interview Kennedy was considered the most eligible bachelor in the country, but Oprah, who asked intimate questions of everyone, would not ask him about his personal life. "I didn't ask him when he's getting married because it's the No. 1 question everyone asks me and it's n.o.body's business but his." Instead, she showed him the provocative video of Marilyn Monroe appearing in a low-cut flesh-colored sequined dress that looked sprayed on and singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to his father at Madison Square Garden. Young Kennedy smiled but did not take the bait. "Yes," he said.

"I've seen that many times."

Although Oprah was unable to coax anything out of the das.h.i.+ng young man, his mere presence gave her record-breaking ratings, which were not topped until Barbra Streisand appeared two months later. Streisand returned in 2003 and topped her previous ratings by singing on daytime television for the first time in forty years. Still, Oprah was most ecstatic about the Kennedy interview. "I thought I loved him," she said after the taping. "Now I know I do."

Oprah was at the top of her game in 1996, making more than $97 million a year and stacking up Daytime Emmys like firewood. She ruled talk show television then because she gave her viewers compulsively watchable programming. It was not all celebrities all the time but a combination of pop culture and dramatic first-person stories of abuse and survival intermixed with books, movies, music videos, beauty makeovers, fad diets, and psychics, plus pressing issues of the day.

Shortly after the outbreak of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in Britain was linked to a neurological disease afflicting humans, Oprah presented a show on April 16, 1996, t.i.tled "Dangerous Foods" in which she asked if the fatal incurable disease that attacks the brain and leads to a slow excruciating death could spread to the United States. The first guest was a British woman who said that her dying eighteen-year-old granddaughter had fallen into a coma after eating hamburger tainted by a mad cow. Film footage showed stumbling, disease-ridden cattle in Britain. The second guest was a woman whose mother-in-law had died from the debilitating disease, which she felt was contracted from eating beef in England. The next two guests were Gary Weber from the National Cattlemen's Beef a.s.sociation, who said government regulations ensured that U.S. beef is safe, and Howard Lyman from the U.S. Humane Society, who said the human form of the disease could make AIDS look like the common cold. The reason, he said, is because each year in the United States one hundred thousand sick cows are slaughtered, ground up, and used for feed.

"Howard, how do you know for sure that the cows are ground up and fed back to the other cows?" asked Oprah.

"Oh, I've seen it," said Lyman. "These are USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] statistics."

Looking sick, Oprah turned to her audience. "Now, doesn't that concern y'all a little bit right here, hearing that? It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger.

I'm stuck....Dr. Gary Weber says we don't have a reason to be concerned. But that in itself is disturbing to me. Cows should not be eating other cows....They should be eating gra.s.s." The audience roared their approval.

The next day cattle prices dropped on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the cattlemen blamed Oprah, although a livestock a.n.a.lyst with Alaron Trading Corporation said, "The program [only] exacerbated what was already a negative situation in the market." Oprah defended herself, saying, "I am speaking as one concerned consumer for millions of others. Cows eating cows is alarming. Americans needed and wanted to know that. I certainly did. We think we were fair. I asked questions that I think that the American people deserve to have answered in light of what is happening in Britain."

The National Cattlemen's Beef a.s.sociation objected to the "unbalanced" editing of the show, pulled $600,000 in network advertising, and threatened to sue Oprah under a Texas statute that outlaws making bad and untruthful statements about perishable food products. Cowed, Oprah aired a second "Dangerous Foods" show the following week (April 23, 1996) and pointedly did not include Howard Lyman, who had said the U.S.

livestock industry was feeding "roadkill" to cattle. An angry rancher later said the second show was "too little too late" because Oprah "didn't go on the program and eat a hamburger before the world."

Within six weeks, various cattle groups had banded together to sue her, King World Productions, Harpo, and Howard Lyman, seeking $12 million in damages. For the next year Oprah geared up to defend herself, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers and jury consultants, in addition to the expense of moving her show to Amarillo, Texas, for a six-week trial in federal court. In the past when she had skirted the line between responsible and irresponsible comments, she had not been called to account, except for her show on devil wors.h.i.+p, during which she introduced the suggestion of Jews sacrificing their children. After meeting with Jewish leaders and apologizing, she was allowed to move on. This time was different: the cattlemen, seeking revenge, wanted to go to court, despite efforts made on Oprah's behalf to settle the case.

Phil McGraw (later known as Dr. Phil, when he became a talk show host) was working as a trial consultant and had been retained by Oprah's lawyers to help plan their courtroom strategy and prepare the defendants for trial. He recalled meeting with Oprah and her attorneys to discuss settling the case instead of going to trial. When Oprah asked what he thought, McGraw said, "If you fight this to the bitter end, the line at the Sue Oprah window is going to get a lot shorter." Actually, that line was never long, because Oprah's wealth had protected her from serious litigation: few people wanted to go up against her bottomless purse and crus.h.i.+ng teams of lawyers. Other than a few pesky lawsuits here and there, including one from former Harpo photographers Paul Natkin and Stephen Green, who sued Oprah (and settled) over a copyright infringement, she had been fairly lucky. In a deposition during the photographers' case, she said, "My intent always is to own myself and every part of myself that I can, including photographs, a building, everything in the building. I have, you know, created a culture...at Harpo of owners.h.i.+p." The attorneys representing the photographers recalled Tim Bennett testifying that Oprah did not know the difference between a W2 form and a 1099, which they found "totally unbelievable."

Hardly litigious, she had filed suit only once before, in 1992, when she and Stedman sued a Canadian tabloid that had published an interview purporting to be with Stedman's male cousin under the headline "I Had Gay Affair with Oprah's Fiance." She and Stedman won that suit by default when the publisher went out of business rather than defend the claim. She instigated one other lawsuit in 1995 by prompting her former decorator Bruce Gregga to sue the National Enquirer National Enquirer after the tabloid published color after the tabloid published color photos of her Chicago condominium, showing s.h.i.+ny gold-fringed chairs, satin damask couches strewn with velvet pillows, red silk wall coverings, and a marble bathtub with gold-plated faucets. "Her place was awful, so ornate and rococo, she should've sued the decorator for bad taste!" said one of the Enquirer Enquirer's attorneys from Williams and Connolly in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Gregga was represented by Oprah's attorneys from Winston and Strawn, and Shearman and Sterling.

"I remember seeing her minutes after she had seen the pictures," said Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun-Times. "She had just flown back from Rancho La Puerta to "She had just flown back from Rancho La Puerta to attend Stedman's book party on the top floor of Michael Jordan's restaurant, and she was livid. 'I am so furious,' she said. 'I just got off the plane and saw a picture of my bathroom in the National Enquirer. National Enquirer. ' She fired Bruce, even though she knew he had nothing to do ' She fired Bruce, even though she knew he had nothing to do with publis.h.i.+ng those pictures. He had a guy working for him who sold the photos for twenty-five thousand dollars to the tabs...but Oprah said they should have been locked in a safe....She felt totally violated." In the end, Oprah and Gregga opted not to go to trial and settled with the tabloid.

She would say later that she never considered settling the "Dangerous Foods"

lawsuit out of court, but her codefendant, Howard Lyman, claimed otherwise. "If they could have found a way to feed me to the cattlemen and gotten her out of the lawsuit, I would have been down in a heartbeat," he said. "I have the highest regard in the world for Oprah, but I can't say the same for her people at Harpo....After the trial was over they contacted my attorney and told him they wanted me to pay Oprah's legal costs [approximately $5 million]." Lyman also said there was great fear resulting from the lawsuit. "The toughest thing for me was when my wife looked me in the eye and asked, 'If we lose, do we lose everything we have?' I had to tell her yes."

Oprah, too, was afraid. She told the Amarillo Globe-News Amarillo Globe-News that before the trial she that before the trial she sent a security team to the city to make sure she would be safe from a lunatic's bullet and her dogs would be safe from being poisoned. She later told Diane Sawyer, "I was afraid, physically afraid for myself. Before I went to Amarillo there were...'Ban Oprah'

b.u.t.tons...and b.u.mper stickers." She said she wasn't afraid of all the people in Amarillo, just a random fanatic who might get excited by all the controversy. Beyond concerns of bodily harm, Oprah realized that if she lost the case, she would lose more than money: she would forfeit the credibility that was the cornerstone of her career. Consequently, she spared no expense in defending herself.

A close reading of the depositions taken in the lawsuit indicates quite a bit of rancor and staff dissension within Harpo, underscoring what one of Oprah's former publicists described as "a snake pit." Employees testified to workplace problems of drugs, s.e.xual addiction, and anger management. An anonymous letter sent to plaintiffs'

attorneys on Harpo stationery was introduced as an exhibit at the deposition of a former employee. The letter directed the plaintiffs' counsel to look into the drinking problems of one of Oprah's senior producers, and race and s.e.x discrimination throughout Harpo. The letter was signed "A Big Beef Fan."

In deposing one of Oprah's former senior producers, her attorney Charles ("Chip") Babc.o.c.k discredited the producer by exposing his past police record, plus an outstanding arrest warrant, which may have been the reason why all future employees of Harpo began with a thirty-day probation period while they were investigated by Kroll a.s.sociates, the international detective agency, before being hired full-time.