Posted on 01/26/2006 12:56:03 PM PST by edgrimly78
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Author James Frey confessed to Oprah Winfrey on Thursday that he made up details about every character in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces" and the talk show host apologized to her viewers, saying she felt "duped."
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In 19 years in television "I've never been in this position before," said Winfrey, whose praise for Frey's book in September helped make it the top-selling book on nonfiction lists in the United States last year.
"I really feel duped," Winfrey told Frey on her television show. She said he had betrayed millions of viewers.
Winfrey began by apologizing to viewers for a telephone call she made to CNN's "Larry King Live" show on January 11, while King was interviewing Frey about the controversy. In the call Winfrey said that even though the facts were being questioned, the book "still resonates with me" and called the controversy "much ado about nothing."
"I regret that phone call," she told her viewers on Thursday. "I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe."
Sitting with Frey in side-by-side easy chairs, Winfrey quizzed the author point-by-point about his book that described his drug-and-alcohol addiction and the people hurt by it.
"All the way through the book I altered details about every one of the characters," Frey said "Every one of the characters was altered," including himself.
He spent two hours in jail, not 87 days, and the account of his breaking up with a woman who later committed suicide happened in a much shorter period of time, with their separation occurring while he was taking care of personal business in North Carolina, not while he was in jail, he said.
She committed suicide by slashing her wrists, he said, not by hanging herself.
Asked if The Smoking Gun Web site which first questioned the book had accurately characterized the discrepancies, Frey said "I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate," adding they did "a good job."
The Smoking Gun said it could find no evidence of his having spent that much time in jail and that an auto accident he wrote about consisted of running his car up on a curb.
Frey said he had developed an image of himself for the book as "being tougher than I was, badder than I was" as a "coping mechanism."
Winfrey asked if that was to make a better book or to make him a better person.
"Probably both," he answered.
"To everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right," she said, adding that the inspiration the book brought to so many people had clouded her judgment.
Frey's book had been chosen by Winfrey for her reading club -- an honor which often turns books into best sellers. Published by Random House's Doubleday division, the book sold more than 1.77 million copies last year after being chosen by Winfrey.
On January 17 Winfrey chose Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her latest selection, sending the book, first published in the United States in 1960, to the top of best-seller lists.
Random House is a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsman AG
Only "feeling duped" because her loyal minions made her say it. They were not impressed by her initial support of Frey; nor was the MSM. Oh dear....
This says as much about Random House as it does Frey and Oprrah.
I'm glad people called her on it and I'm glad she was woman enough to deal with it.
When will this Oprah show air? today?
a bunch of nuts wearing purple are outside the carter center in atlanta today to show support for an oprah nomination for a nobel peace prize. (i must say)
I still liked the book A Million Little Pieces, and James Frey has been through hell, whether he spent two hours or 87 days in jail, or whether his girlfriend slashed her wrists or hung herself.
He's a stronger person than many of us are for having come out of some serious addictions.
Yes.
For anybody who wants to get an early start on the February Oprah Book Club selection, my cousin who works in the Harpo offices says it's gonna be "I Rigoberta Menchu".
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
O brother. He's been through Hell"? Through the drive thru more like!!
he will sleep with the fishes. one best not mess with Oprah.
You think his writing about his addictions and recovery are not true?
Navahoax - http://www.laweekly.com/view/Navahoax-2006-01-23/
You really think there was a Lilly? You do realize that the reason that Frey now claims she slashed her wrists instead of hanging herself is because journalists searched death records and found nobody who fit that description who hung herself during that time?
What's the "strength" in this clown? He's a manipulative, lying overgrown rich frat boy. That's all.
"I Rigoberta Menchu".
I'm missing the point here....kind of slow today.
Explain, oh wise owl :`)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1564785/posts
What does that mean, exactly, a "stronger person?" He's a rich kid who went through high-end re-hab, got a sweet heart book deal via his parents, and then failed to deliver an honest book.
so she slashed her wrists, and her name wasn't Lilly, and he didn't have all those addictions, and there's no Leonard, and... .
I still liked the book, and if James Frey is a sober addict, he is a better man than I.
Owl_Eagle, tell me your cousin has a real good sense of humor...
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