Posted on 01/26/2006 9:29:02 AM PST by LouAvul
CHICAGO - Oprah Winfrey challenged author James Frey over his disputed memoir, asking him on a live telecast of her show Thursday to explain why he "felt the need to lie."
"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped ... but more importantly I feel that you betrayed millions of readers," Winfrey said to Frey, who wrote the hugely popular "A Million Little Pieces."
Frey's story of substance abuse and recovery became one of the best-selling books of 2005 after Winfrey named it to her book club last fall, with countless addicts citing it as inspiration. It was originally published in 2003.
The memoir began to unravel earlier this month when an investigative piece on The Smoking Gun Web site (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) challenged some of the facts in the book, including Frey's assertion that he once spent three months in prison.
Frey, 36, appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" show after The Smoking Gun story appeared, and Winfrey phoned in her support for him and for the book, calling the allegations against Frey "much ado about nothing."
"What is relevant is that he was a drug addict ... and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves," Winfrey said in the surprise call two weeks ago.
But Winfrey, who has been widely criticized, even by e-mailers on her Web site, for her apparent indifference to the controversy, said Thursday that she regretted making that call.
"I left the impression that the truth is not important," she said.
Frey acknowledged to King that he had embellished parts of the book, and he told Winfrey Thursday that the same demons that fueled his addictions caused him to mischaracterize himself.
"I made a mistake," Frey told Winfrey on Thursday.
Frey's acknowledgments have not hurt sales so far, with both "A Million Little Pieces" and its sequel, "My Friend Leonard," high on best seller lists. His publisher, Doubleday, said last week that Frey was writing a brief author's note for future editions of "A Million Little Pieces."
PS I think this whole episode foreshadows the Dem Party's upcoming marketing line in elections, which I predict will be something like: "We are the party of TRUTH -- unlike the GOP." Kind of a hard sell, IMO, when you think back at Bill Clinton, Jayson Blair, and a host of other examples the Dem Party probably hopes everyone will have forgotten come Election Day. ("Hey everyone, just remember how we caught that scoundrel-receovered drug addict-author James Frey!")
The book was fake but accurate.
chicagotribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0601270195jan27,1,190784.column?coll=chi-news-col
Oprah knows good TV, and that's no lie
John Kass
January 27, 2006
Completely Exaggerated News -- Flush with victory after verbally slapping the heck out of a drug addict on her national television program, Oprah! Winfrey will continue her "Stop the Fibbers Tour" next week in New Orleans, where she's scheduled to visit Mayor Ray Nagin and demand he make a proper chocolate shake. Earlier, she confronted Michael Jackson over his decision to wear what looked like a burqa during a visit in the Middle East. "You're wearing a burqa? I feel duped. From now on, I'm not going to let anybody embellish on my show! Even you. I'm mad as hell and I just won't take it anymore!"
Oprah! didn't say any of that. I was just kidding. I made it up, and I'm not even a drug addict memoir writer. I wouldn't want Oprah! to get upset with me. She doesn't even know my name, and let's keep it that way.
The last thing I'd need is for her to ask me on her show so she could kick my butt like she did that lying drug addict on Thursday.
I wouldn't know what's worse: Being asked by a Chicago Outfit boss to come to his house for a late spaghetti dinner and when you get there it's just the two of you and the floor is covered with plastic tarp; or making Oprah! angry and then she asks you on her show.
She's the queen of media, and you can tell this by all the columnists rushing to write how brave she is for inviting that lying drug addict on her show, then beating him up for being a lying drug addict, and praising her for being the brave one.
Isn't that what drug addicts do? Aren't they liars by the nature of their addiction? And when they're humiliated on national TV by someone who defended them only a few days before, they might get nervous and call their "pusher-man" and ask for more drugs.
That might make a good show too.
Still, Oprah!'s the brave one. She's brave. She's brave. There, I said it. I don't mind having mayors or governors upset with me. And I didn't mind teasing First Grandma Barbara Bush for making cracks about how the New Orleans poor were better off in the Astrodome than in poverty back home. But I wouldn't ever be foolish enough to get on Oprah!'s bad side. If she asked me to put on a puffy swashbuckler shirt and a Scottish kilt and dance, I'd have to pull my black socks up and start stretching.
By now most of you know what she did, and how President Bush angered millions of Oprah! fans by daring to hold a news conference during her show, thinking he should talk about nuclear Iran and the troubles with Iraq. And figured he didn't have to release those incriminating photographs of him smiling, his arm around crooked Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, because the country would be too preoccupied, eagerly anticipating a drug addict butt-kicking.
"I think he did it on purpose. Oh, that Bush!" said a woman in the lobby of a stately gothic building on Michigan Avenue. "I wanted to see Oprah beat up that lying addict."
You've got to know the story by now. She put "A Million Little Pieces," the memoir of lying drug addict James Frey, on her Oprah! book club, and it became a best seller. Then it turned out he lied throughout the book. Then Frey showed up on Larry King (another tough interviewer) and Oprah! called in to defend Frey, saying truth didn't matter as much as feeling.
Then she had Frey on her show Thursday, and she kicked his behind. Consider this from a ChicagoTribune.com story written by reporter Patrick T. Reardon:
"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped," Winfrey told a startled-looking Frey, who licked his lips often before speaking. "More importantly, I feel you betrayed millions of readers. As I sit here today, I don't know what's true and I don't know what isn't."
According to Reardon, who watched the program (I was foolishly interested in a nuclear Iran), Oprah! appeared close to tears when Frey admitted that Lilly, a character in the book, didn't kill herself by hanging, but slit her wrists.
So Oprah! ripped into Frey some more and he licked his lips some more. That lip-licking detail really got to me. You know when a drug addict licks his lips on Oprah!, he's finished.
Recently, though, Oprah! called up the Larry King program and defended Frey from charges he was a liar. Details, shmeetails, she almost said, according to a transcript.
Oprah!: "Whether or not the car's wheels rolled up on the sidewalk or whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that he was a drug addict who spent years in turmoil, from the time he was 10 years old, drinking and tormenting himself and his parents. And, out of that, stepped out of that history to be the man he is today, and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves. That's what's important about this book and his story."
King: "One quick thing, Oprah. So, therefore, you hold him no ill will, have no less regard, and still recommend the book?"
Oprah!: "Yes. Yes."
But now she feels duped. And many of us media people are rushing to her defense as she protects her brand. But we're not duped. Honest.
Why Won't The Media Touch This Book?
Scoop | 1-21-06 | Mark Crispin Miller
Posted on 01/21/2006 4:40:54 PM PST by toddlintown
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1562476/posts
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