Oprah is Piiiiised!

PLEASE tell me that someone saw Oprah yesterday? Oh, it was so bruuuutal. She was piiiiiised! A few posts ago I talked about how there was a report on the smoking gun website that James Frey, author of "A Million Little Pieces" was being challenged on how true his story was. Well, that just snowballed and the guy totally fessed up on Oprah. She was so mad because she chose this book for her book club and, let's be honest, shot it to number one and helped him maked a ton of money. She totally grilled him and it was almost uncomfortable to watch:

Oprah: James Frey is here and I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel really duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers. I think it's such a gift to have millions of people to read your work and that bothers me greatly. So now, as I sit here today I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't. So first of all, I wanted to start with The Smoking Gun report titled, "The Man Who Conned Oprah" and I want to know, were they right?

James: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate. Absolutely.

Oprah: Okay.

James: I think they did a good job detailing some of the discrepancies between some of the actual facts of the events…

Oprah: What [The Smoking Gun] said was that you lied about the length of time that you spent in jail. How long were you in jail?

James: [The Smoking Gun was] right about that. I was in [jail] for a few hours.

Oprah: Not 87 days?

James: Correct.

Oprah: I acted in defense of you and as I said, my judgment was clouded because so many people seemed to have gotten so much out of it. But now I feel that you conned us all. Do you?

James: I don't feel like I conned everyone.

Oprah: You don't.

James: No.

Oprah: Why?

James: Because I still think the book is about drug addiction and alcoholism and nobody's disputing that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. And it's about the battle to overcome that.

Oprah: No, but I remember when you were here the last time in the after show a woman stood up and said, 'You know, after reading this book and seeing you coming through what you came through, the way you did, and you having the attitude that you did makes me feel that I can do it too.' I think you presented a false person.

Oprah: So, I want to move on to the dentist story because anybody who's read the book—when you get to the story of him going to the dentist and you describe having two root canals without Novocain or anesthesia, so graphic, so detailed. You say, 'My face is on fire and the veins in my neck are exploding and my brain is white,' and you describe the white, white hot pain. … And when I first saw you, that's the first thing I asked you about: "That's unbelievable!" Now, you said that that was true. Would you say that today?

James: I…I wrote it from memory. … I had medical documents that supported it … About nine months after the book was released, I was speaking to somebody from the facility. They said that they doubted it happened that way, but that there was a chance that it did—that cases like that are reviewed on an individual basis.

Oprah: This is what I don't get. Because when you were here before, you said that there were about 400 pages of documents. You said you kept a journal. You kept pages. That there were documents and reports of everything that you did. Because I said, "How can you remember such detail? And that's how you explained it to me. I don't know how you remember all the detail and you forget Novocain. So what was true about the dentist and what wasn't? You did go to the dentist?

James: Absolutely.

Oprah: You went to the dentist. What's true about the dentist?

James: I mean, I went to the dentist. I had my front four teeth repaired …as I remember it.

Oprah: With Novocain?

James: I honestly have no idea.

Oprah: Well then why did you say you didn't have Novocain? Because, you know, the last time I went to the dentist, my dentist said that could not have happened. And I said, 'Oh no. It happened. He told me it happened.' …So, why did you do that?

James: I mean, once I talked to the person at the facility about it, you know, the book had been out for nine months. We'd already done a lot of interviews about it. … Since that time I've struggled with the idea of it…"

Oprah: No, the lie of it. That's a lie. It's not an idea, James. That's a lie.

I have to hand it to him though. It takes some gigantic balls to go on her show when you pretty much lied to her face. Ouch! Want to see a little clip? Best week Ever has one.