Lies: Oprah doesn't like them, and she's talking about it, again
Posted at 1:11 PM Jan 19, 2009
By Sharon Steel
A public declaration of "disappointment" by Oprah Winfrey is never what it seems. We know this from the James Frey debacle. Winfrey defended the author's name on Larry King, then invited Frey and his publisher on her show to verbally crucify them before a studio audience and the entire universe! Silly authors: when you want your heartbreaking memoir to be touted by the woman who sometimes singlehandedly controls the ebb and flow of the publishing industry, you should probably make sure, in advance, that it isn't filled with tall tales and falsehoods!Anyway, on Friday, Oprah finally broke her silence about the Herman Rosenblat kerfuffle. Rosenblat, a Holocaust survivor, lied about meeting the woman who would eventually become his first wife because she, disguised as a Christian girl, threw apples over his concentration camp fence to him. Oprah thought it was the greatest love story of all time! Now, not so much.
"That's what happens with lies," Winfrey said on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired Friday. "They get bigger and bigger and bigger."
Rosenblat, a 79-year-old resident of North Miami Beach, and his wife Roma have appeared twice on Winfrey's show. Winfrey said he had planned to appear again to "explain himself," but the man's lawyers scuttled that.Um, yes, past precedent pretty much assured that would never happen. But here's the weird: until Friday, she let her web site speak for her with a brief disclaimer, and Rosenblat's story remained listed on her site as the first example of Love Lessons From Amazing Couples. So what took her so long to open up?
Gayle King, Oprah's BFF, has an explanation. Read into the defensive language and the answer's right there.
Gayle King, a Winfrey friend, said on her pal's show Friday that Rosenblat's story also disappointed her. But King took issue with some media outlets apparently saying Winfrey again has been deceived.
"I was very disappointed because when the story first broke, the big headline was 'Oprah Duped Again,' " King said. "I called Oprah and I said, 'I'm so tired of you being the whipping boy for this hoax because he didn't just dupe you -- he duped a lot of people.'"
If Rosenblat won't appear on Oprah's show to offer his explanation, and in doing so, leave himself open to another severe cross-examnation, what's Oprah's next power-play? Because the fake memoir story almost become a chestnut, and something tells us Winfrey knows this isn't the type of thing to just blow over without her having a definitive, final say.
[AP]
