by Kitty Kelley
“The subjects for discussion change over the years,” she said in 1989. “It used to be better sex and the perfect orgasm. Then it was diet. The trend for the nineties is family and nurturing.” To that end she presented shows such as “How to Have a Happy Step Family,” “The Family Dinner Experiment,” “In Search of Missing Children,” and “How to Find Loved Ones,” in which she showed viewers how to track down long-lost relatives.
Her most effective shows continued to be those that touched her own life and explored the personal issues she was coping with at the time, including her continual struggle with weight, the damage of sexual molestation, and the ravages of racism. She took her audience inside the life of an obese person by introducing twenty-five-year-old Stacey Halprin, who weighed 550 pounds the first time she was on the show. Stacey returned after losing 300 pounds following gastric bypass surgery and came back again after losing another 60 pounds to get an Oprah makeover, which also became one of the show’s most popular staples.
In her 1989 show titled “Date Rape,” Oprah said, “I know it will have liberated a lot of women who have been raped and never called it that. A major survey showed that eighty-seven percent of high-school boys believe they have the right to force a woman to have sex if they have spent money on a date—and forty-seven percent of girls agreed. It’s amazing to me that women buy into that attitude.”
On Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday in 1992 she announced that she would present shows throughout the year devoted to “Racism in America”:
“Racism in the Neighborhood”
“I Hate Your Interracial Relationship”
“Japanese Americans: The New Racism”
“Are We All Racist?”
“The Rodney King Verdict I and II”
“My Parent Is a Racist”
“An Experiment in Racism”
“Too Little, Too Late: Native Americans Speak Out”
“I Refuse to Date My Own Race”
“Unsolved Hate Crimes”
“White Men Who Fear Black Men”
She took her cameras to South Central Los Angeles in the wake of the riots that followed the acquittal of the white police officers who had beaten Rodney King, an African American. Bloody chaos erupted after the 1992 verdict, with the violent deaths of fifty-four people in one of the most deadly riots in U.S. history. South LA ignited into an inferno of 4,000 fires damaging 1,100 buildings, causing 2,382 injuries, and resulting in 13,212 arrests. That evening, television viewers watched in horror as Reginald Denny, a white man, was dragged from his truck and beaten by a black mob. President George Herbert Walker Bush finally sent in federal troops to restore order.
With the best of intentions, Oprah assembled a multiracial audience of whites, Asians, blacks, and Hispanics for her first taping in Los Angeles, but she ended up with a show of shrill militants, which prompted Howard Rosenberg to write in the Los Angeles Times that she was “overmatched in this withering onslaught of anger and outrage, watching helplessly as her studio full of warring multicultural guests screamed sound bites at each other.” One black woman justified the riots by saying, “We had to do something to get Oprah into LA to get people talking.” Rosenberg nearly despaired. “If this is talking,” he wrote, “bring back shouting.”
Despite the critics, Oprah maintained her position as the country’s number one talk show host among a growing field of competitors. Her program’s popularity and the intense loyalty of her female viewers made her the most influential voice in daytime television, and her made-for-television movies and specials had extended her audience, but she still wanted to engrave her presence in prime time. So, for her next network special, she and her executive producer, Debra DiMaio, cast their lines for a prize catch and managed to reel in Michael Jackson, the self-styled “King of Pop, Rock, and Soul,” who was then the subject of international curiosity. He had not done a live interview in fourteen years, but because it was Oprah offering ninety minutes of prime-time television, and possibly because his record sales had dropped along with his popularity, he agreed to sit down with her at his Neverland ranch in Santa Ynez, California. Oprah promised not to ask him if he was gay, but she said she wanted to give him a chance to address the bizarre rumors about him bleaching his skin, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, and having serial plastic surgeries.
In addition, she asked:
“Were your brothers jealous of you when you started getting all the attention?”
“Did your father beat you?”
“Are you a virgin?”
“Why do you always grab your crotch?”
“Do you go out, do you date?”
“Who do you date?”
“Have you ever been in love? We’d like to know whether or not there is a possibility that you are going to marry one day and have children?”
Sixteen years later, after Michael Jackson died in 2009, Oprah played part of that interview. She said that she did not believe him when he told her that he had had only two plastic surgeries. She also seemed dubious about his claim of vitiligo, the disorder that he said bleached his skin.
During the interview, the smoke detectors went off at Neverland and the screeching noise forced Oprah to break for an unplanned commercial. Later, Diane Dimond, one of Jackson’s biographers, speculated that Jackson had planned the interruption to disrupt Oprah’s personal questions. Bob Jones, Jackson’s publicist from 1987 to 2002, who had coined the term “King of Pop,” recalled the interruption as a way for Jackson to bring on Elizabeth Taylor as a surprise.
“He had Liz there to trump Oprah’s questions, and also because he knew that Liz would add to the ratings….Liz should’ve been there, considering all the jewels Michael gave her over the years. That was a very expensive friendship, let me tell you.”
Taylor told Oprah—who irritated the star by continuing to call her Liz instead of Elizabeth—that Michael was “the least weird man I have ever known,” in addition to being “highly intelligent, shrewd, intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, generous.” Years later Oprah said she did not think their friendship weird because they shared the same experiences of being child stars with abusive fathers.
During his 1993 interview, Michael Jackson looked “Off the Wall,” Oprah wasn’t “Bad,” and it never got “Dangerous,” but for ninety million viewers in the United States and one hundred million around the world, the interview was a pop culture “Thriller.” Jackson defended his preoccupation with children as compensation for his lost childhood and the urge to surround himself with unconditional love. “I find a thing I never had through them,” he said. Ten years later he would give an interview to British TV that led to his prosecution for child molestation, but he was found not guilty on all charges. He admitted to Oprah that he had a lifelong crush on Diana Ross, whom he seemed to resemble, and he claimed to be in love with Brooke Shields.
“Michael just BS’d Oprah about not being gay,” said Bob Jones, who was on the set during the interview. “Michael was a much bigger star than Oprah at that time—he was once the biggest black performer in the world—but that interview served both of them quite well. The one person Michael really wanted to be associated with was not Oprah but Princess Diana, and we did everything possible to get him an introduction, but the princess would not return his calls….Finally we did the Prince’s Trust [a charity event] and Michael met her, at Wembley Stadium in London, but she didn’t say much to him beyond hello.”
Oprah’s special on Michael Jackson was the highest-rated non– Super Bowl entertainment event in almost a decade, exceeding everyone’s expectations, including those of sponsors. ABC reported that the show was one of the most watched entertainment programs in television history, and the fourth-highest-ranked entertainment show since 1960, behind only the finale of M*A*S*H (February 1983), the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas (November 1980), and The Day After (November 1983). Time said, “Part grand Oprah, part soap Oprah, the Winfrey show was at the very least great TV: live, reckless, e
motionally naked.” Life concurred: “Oprah delivered the goods and accomplished the near-impossible: She brought Peter Pan down to earth.” At last Oprah had won her place in prime time. “My finest hour in television,” she said.
Fourteen
FOR MANY years, the American Booksellers Association held its annual convention over the Memorial Day weekend, and in 1993, ABA, as it was called then, was a bacchanal. More than twenty-five thousand retailers, publishers, agents, and authors flew to Miami for four days and nights of buying, selling, and celebrating at splashy parties with author-celebrities such as William Styron, Maya Angelou, and Ken Follett, as well as celebrity authors such as Ann-Margret, Rush Limbaugh, and Dr. Ruth. But no one attracted more attention or applause than thirty-nine-year-old Oprah Winfrey, who was poised to publish her autobiography, which was expected to be the biggest-selling book in publishing history.
She was lionized by her publisher on Saturday evening of that weekend, at one of the most elaborate and expensive parties Alfred A. Knopf, the most prestigious publishing company in the book business, had ever thrown for an author. The exterior of Miami’s International Palace was lit in purple as an homage to Oprah’s favorite color and her first movie. Within the skyscraper, tables groaned with platters of shrimp the size of iPods for the eighteen hundred guests who swarmed around silver chafing dishes brimming with pasta, haunches of prime rib, and strips of sizzling sirloin. Tuxedoed waiters raced back and forth with trays of crystal flutes bubbling with champagne for booksellers more accustomed to cheap wine in paper cups.
Wearing a bright aqua suit, a once-again-thin Oprah arrived on Stedman’s arm and was introduced by the chairman of the board of Random House, Inc. She charmed everyone by saying she was so excited about her book that she wished she could get on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote it. Although she had not yet started Oprah’s Book Club, everyone knew what she could do for books she liked. Just two weeks earlier, she had taken her cameras to Iowa to do a segment on The Bridges of Madison County. The weeper was already a bestseller, but Oprah’s show triggered an additional demand for 350,000 copies.
So it was understandable that as the featured speaker at the book and author breakfast the next morning, she would be received like Cleopatra on her barge for all of Rome to honor. The crowd was wall-to-wall and the applause was deafening as she approached the microphone. She began by saying that she thought everyone should sit down and write a book about themselves. “You can save yourself a huge therapy bill,” she said. “For me, working on this book the past year and a half has been like ten years of therapy. I’ve learned so much about myself.” She heaped praise on her collaborator, Joan Barthel, and quickly assured everyone that she had not written a celebrity kiss-and-tell. “I haven’t done that much anyway, and besides, the people I did it with, you don’t know ’em, so…you don’t have to worry about that,” she said to peals of laughter.
Turning on all of her telegenic charm, Oprah dazzled the booksellers with her often-told anecdotes—which, to those who had never seen her show, seemed fresh and spontaneous. She talked about growing up as “a poor little ole nappy-headed colored chile” who wanted to be Diana Ross “or just somebody supreme”; how she had to hide in a closet with a flashlight to read because her family made fun of her for being “an old bookworm” and accused her of “trying to be more than everybody else” because she loved books. She talked about her weight, how her bosses in Baltimore tried to make her over, and how she ended up bald. “You know you’ve got a struggle on your hands when you’re black and fat and bald in America, and you’re a woman on television,” she said. Rocking with hilarity, the crowd clapped until their hands hurt.
“It doesn’t matter how victimized any of us have been, we’re all responsible for our lives,” Oprah said. “This is a book about taking responsibility for the victories in your own life. Mine has been a wondrous amazing life. I grew up with feelings of not being loved, and that’s why I feel so blessed to speak to 20 million viewers everyday who write…to tell me that they love me.” She said she was going to bring people into bookstores who had never before been in them, words that fell on the assembled booksellers like manna from heaven. The idea of an adoring audience of twenty million potential book buyers made them giddy with anticipation. She concluded by adding high purpose to potential profit: “My goal is to uplift, encourage and empower people,” she said. “I make no bones about wanting to really make a difference in the world, and I hope Oprah: An Autobiography will do just that.”
Dizzy with delight, the booksellers jumped up to give her a standing ovation, shaking the coffee cups with reverberations from their applause. Here was an author who was going to lift every bookstore in the country and sprinkle gold dust on an entire industry. Publication was set for September 20, 1993; Knopf had announced a staggeringly large first printing of 750,000 copies; the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild planned a direct mailing to five million homes; and, best of all, Oprah had promised to visit a different city every week in a thirty-city promotional tour from the fall of 1993 through the spring of 1994. Robert Wietrak, the director of merchandising for Barnes & Noble, was beside himself. “This will be the biggest book we’ve ever sold,” he said.
Hearing the tsunami of praise pouring out of ABA, where Oprah had generated waves of rapture, reporters began calling Knopf, wanting to know more about her book. On June 9, 1993, fifteen weeks before publication, Erroll McDonald, Oprah’s editor, told The New York Times, “Given that the media feeds off Oprah to a great degree, we don’t want people to cannibalize the book before it comes out.” He need not have worried.
Six days later Oprah called her publisher. “This is the hardest call I’ve ever had to make…but…I have to withdraw my book….We can’t publish now….I have to postpone it.”
After several anguished calls back and forth, the publisher pleading for Oprah to change her mind and Oprah apologizing profusely, at one point even offering to repay Knopf for the ABA party in her honor, she officially canceled publication with a statement that crushed booksellers: “I am in the heart of the learning curve. I feel there are important discoveries yet to be made.”
The next day’s headlines reflected the scale of the story that became national news:
“Oprah’s Book Delay Leaves World Guessing” (USA Today)
“Rumors Still Swirl as Oprah Stays Silent” (Los Angeles Sentinel)
“More Lessons to Learn Before Oprah Tells All” (New York Times)
“Oprah Pulls Plug on Autobiography” (Newsday)
“Oprah Wanted Book to Be More Than Recitation” (Chicago Sun-Times)
Not surprisingly, the tabloid Star was the most explicit: “Why Oprah’s Banning Her Sexy Tell-All Book.”
Legally, Oprah could back away from her commitment to Knopf because she had not signed a standard contract, simply a nonbinding letter of agreement saying she would forgo an advance against royalties, but that she and the publisher would split all profits fifty-fifty. Customarily, authors receive an advance, and when the advance is earned out by book sales, they receive a percentage of the price of each book sold as a royalty. Oprah’s copublishing arrangement with Knopf was extraordinary, and considering the early orders, was guaranteed to be phenomenally profitable for both author and publisher. The people at Knopf, where the book was now being called Noprah, tried to put the best face on what industry analysts estimated to be a $20 million loss.
“She felt she needed to put in more work,” Erroll McDonald told reporters. “I think that the book, as it is, is very powerful and revealing, but I’m not its author.”
The head of Knopf’s public relations and publicity department, William T. Loverd, tried to soft-pedal the knockout punch. “She felt this was not the best job she could do,” he said. “There was not enough of her in it. The book is only postponed.”
Arlene Friedman, editor in chief of Doubleday Book Club, said, “We felt it was the book that every woman would want to read.”
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p; “The book is extremely strong and honest,” said Sonny Mehta, the president and editor in chief of Knopf. “[But] it is her book, and we will of course abide by her wishes. We look forward to resuming work on the project when she is ready.” And that, as Yiddish comics say, would be a year from Shavuos, the Jewish holiday that never comes.
Oprah’s publicist was besieged by calls from reporters about the sudden cancellation, and she danced as fast as she could trying to interpret for them “the heart of the learning curve.”
“Oprah felt it was premature [to publish] because she has a lot of positive things going on in her life right now that she would want to include in the book, like her marriage to Stedman and her recent weight loss from working out,” said Colleen Raleigh. She explained that since Oprah’s engagement she had been working with her chef and her trainer to try to lose eighty-five pounds by her fortieth birthday, and she was making excellent progress, but that didn’t carry weight with reporters, who pushed for the real reason Oprah had canceled her book, asking if it was because of Stedman.
“No, no…Their relationship had nothing to do with it,” said Raleigh. “It couldn’t be stronger.”
Despite Raleigh’s best efforts, every news story on the book’s cancellation carried the suggestion that Oprah’s fiancé was aghast at what she had written about her past sex life, and pointed out that the couple had been officially engaged for seven months but still had not set a wedding date. Erroll McDonald tried to dismiss the idea that Oprah had derailed her book because of Stedman’s objections. “That suggests that Oprah is at the mercy of what others say,” he said, “that she’s not capable of making up her own mind.” But even he did not know what had really happened.
More confusing were the conflicting stories Oprah told about whether or not she and Stedman had ever set a wedding date. In October 1993 she told Ebony: