Oprah (63 page)

In their scramble to give Oprah ratings her producers can be rambunctious. “I found them to be…exceedingly difficult,” said Daniel J. Bagdade, the attorney who represented the first child in the United States to be sentenced as an adult for murder. His client, Nathaniel (Nate) Abraham, shot and killed Ronald Greene in Pontiac, Michigan. At the age of eleven Nate was sent to a maximum-security juvenile detention facility until he was twenty-one. Upon his release, Oprah’s producers were waiting to sign him to do a show, featuring his on-air apology to the family of his victim. His lawyer was not sanguine about putting him in the intense media spotlight of
The Oprah Winfrey Show,
but Nate was enthralled with the celebrity allure of Oprah. “She’s the person he admires most,” said the attorney. “So I agreed….But once we got to Chicago, well…”

Seeing that what the producers had in mind for the show would put his client in legal jeopardy, Bagdade revoked Nate’s signed release. “Then it was two days and nights with Oprah and her attorney, a tough older gentleman [William Becker heads Harpo’s legal staff of twenty-five], and her hard-charging producers, who were aggressive and really backed us into a corner. They threatened to sue us for breaking the contract….‘We are not going to leave it here,’ they said. Oprah and I were back and forth on cell phones at midnight as she tried to get the show on the air. When I explained the legal complications to her, she called a lawyer in Michigan to make sure I was telling her the truth. She was reasonable and professional throughout, but I can’t say the same about her staff.”

In the end the show never aired. Instead, Oprah mediated Nate’s apology to his victim’s family privately, and Bagdade accompanied him and his mother and Ronald Greene’s relatives into Oprah’s office, which, he said, “was the size of a large house. Directly off her office is a wardrobe room, which is the size of another large house….The shoe area alone seems to cover half a block.” Bagdade did not see Oprah’s huge office bathroom with its pond-sized tub of rose-colored marble.

With Harpo’s lawyer sitting in the corner, Oprah stood at her big desk and proceeded to bring the two families together. “A true apology
had never been given before, so this was a very moving experience for all of us,” said Nate’s lawyer. “It’s a good thing it was not on-camera. It would’ve been too exploitive. The two mothers—Nate’s and Mrs. Greene—hugged and kissed. Both are churchgoing ladies, so they talked about God and his forgiveness.”

Once Oprah realized she was not going to get the gripping television show she wanted, she could easily have sent the Abrahams and the Greenes back to Pontiac, Michigan. But to her credit she chose to complete the stated purpose of the show: to give a young killer the chance to express remorse for his crime by apologizing to his victim’s family, which gave everyone a measure of peace. “Oprah really went out of her way with Nate,” said his attorney. “She gave him lots of advice and took a special interest in him during those couple of days.”

Not all scrapped shows brought out Oprah’s magnanimity, however, particularly if money was involved. When she got a chance to interview Monica Lewinsky, she said she was thrilled to land the young intern’s first interview about her sexual relationship with President Clinton, which eventually led to his impeachment. Lewinsky, too, was excited, especially when told that Oprah was going to embrace her in front of her studio audience. But when the former White House aide insisted on keeping the foreign distribution rights to that interview after it aired in the United States, Oprah balked. At issue were world licensing fees in excess of $1 million, which Lewinsky said she needed to pay her mounting legal fees. Being one of the world’s most sought-after interviewees then, she was of immense international interest, because no one had ever heard her voice or her side of the story that nearly toppled a president. Oprah insisted on keeping the foreign rights to the interview; Monica said she could not afford to give them up. The next day on her talk show, Oprah announced, “I did have the interview with Monica Lewinsky, and then the conversation moved in a direction that I did not want to go. I don’t pay for interviews, no matter how it’s couched. I’ve taken myself out of the running. I don’t even want the interview now. Whoever gets the interview, God help you in your struggle.”

The two-hour interview went to Barbara Walters, for a special edition of
20/20
on ABC, and drew forty-five million viewers in the United States, with Lewinsky retaining world rights. Later, in a story
titled “How Oprah Dumped Monica,”
George
magazine recounted that Oprah had “trashed” the former intern when she refused to sign an agreement with Harpo. “[I]n Lewinsky’s eyes, Winfrey proved to be…heartless, treacherous, and disloyal.”

None of that would be believed by any of Oprah’s adoring fans or the studio audiences, who wait months, sometimes years, for tickets to her show and then stand in line for hours to be admitted. “Everything about
The Oprah Winfrey Show
is orchestrated right down to the last squeal of the studio audience,” said a publishing executive who has escorted many authors to Chicago over the years. “The drill goes something like this: Once you get through security and get seated, four or five producers—not just one—warm up the audience for about forty-five minutes. We are all given directions on how to act. We’re told to jump and scream. When Oprah says something funny, we’re supposed to laugh and clap. Then we are rehearsed. ‘Now let’s try it. If Oprah is shocked, you are shocked. C’mon. Act horrified. Show it. Let’s do it again. The more you react, the better chance you’ll have to be shown on television. This is important. You are Oprah’s audience. You are her portal to the world. So you must respond.’ These producers are trained to work everyone into a frenzy so the audience is hysterical by the time Oprah comes out of the tunnel. The minute she appears, everyone jumps up and begins cheering and weeping and screaming and stomping.”

Oprah became so accustomed to rapturous audiences that she reacted negatively if she saw someone not standing to applaud her. “One time she spotted a young black man who just sat there,” said the publishing executive. “She began heckling him. ‘I see someone here who is very brave.’ She began shuckin’ and jivin’: ‘Oh no. I don’t have to stand up and cheer for Oprah. No, sir. Not me. I’m the man. I won’t bow to Oprah.’ She did her whole ghetto shtick. It was ugly, very ugly for about four or five minutes while the poor guy just sat there as she mocked him. She wouldn’t let up….She was pissed that he was not giving her the adoring routine that the rest of the audience was….Turned out the young man was mentally challenged and severely disabled.”

Part of the excitement in attending one of Oprah’s shows is the possibility of walking away with a fabulous giveaway—TiVos, iPods,
Kindles, cakes, clothes, even cars. The most anticipated gift show of every year—“Oprah’s Favorite Things”—started in 1999 as an outgrowth of Oprah’s passion for shopping. For years she had shared her spending orgies with her viewers—her towels, her pajamas, her cashmere sweaters, her diamond earrings—and they enjoyed her unbridled enthusiasm over her newfound wealth. Excited about becoming a millionaire, she constantly asked her celebrity guests, “When did you know you were rich?” “How does it feel to be able to buy anything you want?” “What did you do when you first got real money?” “Has being a millionaire changed your life?”

When she started “Oprah’s Favorite Things” she called the manufacturer of each item she picked and asked them to send her three hundred freebies to give to her studio audience. The publicity they received in exchange launched many into new levels of profitability because they were then flooded with orders from her viewers. Small businesses such as Spanx, Inc., Thermage beauty treatment, Philosophy skin care, Carol’s Daughter beauty products, and Lafco fragrances became behemoths as a result of making something that Oprah liked; thus few companies ever denied her free merchandise. “My deal is only this: If I’m going to say it’s my favorite thing because it is my favorite thing, all you have to do is give me three hundred of them, okay? [T]here was this book that somebody had given me—a book called
The Way We Live.
It was a great coffee table book, and it had pictures from all over the world of different homes and how people live in these different homes. Do you know we called the publisher [Crown] and they said no? They said they didn’t have that many books to give away for free because I think the book is expensive [$75], if you buy it in stores. Can you believe that? So you know what I said, ‘Well, it’s not going to be my favorite thing no more!’ But how dumb is that [publisher]? That’s pretty dumb. It’s a book. How many books could they have sold?”

Oprah referred to her “Favorite Things” show as “the hottest ticket in television” and kept the airdate secret until the day of the show. Then she devoted an hour to giving away her favorite things of that year, which have included organic cheesecakes, candied popcorn, Ugg boots, CDs, books, coats, laptops, digital cameras, custom-designed Nike shoes, diamond watches, BlackBerrys, and flat-screen TVs. Each
year she announced the items with great fanfare and always included the retail price. In 2007 she presented her most outrageously exorbitant item at the end of the show, when she hollered, “This is my most expensive favorite thing ever, ever, ever.” Nearly spent with orgasmic delight over what they had already received, her studio audience trembled as the drums rolled and the velvet curtains opened to reveal an LG refrigerator with a high-definition TV built into the door, a DVD hookup, and a radio, plus technology for a slide show, a five-day forecast, and a laptop holding one hundred recipes. “It [retails for] $3,789.00,” Oprah screamed. The grand total for that year’s Favorite Things was $7,200. Conan O’Brien joked on late-night television, “
Forbes
magazine released its list of the twenty richest women….Oprah is number one. The rest are in her audience.”

The list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” seemed to get longer and more expensive over the years, making her, as one writer noted, “The countess of ka-ching, the monarch of materialism.” When she was criticized for crass commercialism, Oprah announced that, going forward, the audiences for her “Favorite Things” shows would be deserving recipients such as underpaid teachers or Katrina volunteers.

Her most ballyhooed giveaway occurred on September 13, 2004. “That was the best year I’ve ever experienced in television with the exception of the first year,” she told the writer P. J. Bednarski. She opened the season by giving away 276 brand-new Pontiac G6s, worth more than $28,000 apiece, for a collective total of $7.8 million.

“It was not a stunt and I resent the word
stunt,
” she said, explaining that when a General Motors executive offered to give the cars as part of her “Favorite Things” show, she said no. “I can’t do that because that’s not my favorite car and I’m not going to say it is.” Then she remembered Jane Pauley’s new talk show was launching in September as a strong alternative to her own. Oprah’s producers pushed, saying she could not turn down the opportunity to give away cars, so they set about finding worthy souls who needed wheels. Jane Pauley’s launch show was buried under Oprah’s free cars show, which became one of the most talked-about giveaways in television history.

“My heart was palpitating [that day],” she recalled. “We had real
emergency medical personnel standing by because sometimes people really do pass out in the audience.”

Revving herself and her audience into a paroxysm of ecstasy, she passed out small boxes to everyone and said that one box contained the keys to a free car. The audience opened their boxes and each found a set of keys. Oprah started yelling and jumping and pumping her arms: “You win a car! You win a car! Everybody gets the car. Everybody gets the car! Everybody gets the car!” She led her delirious audience out to the Harpo parking lot, where 276 gleaming blue Pontiac G6s had been wrapped in huge red bows. “This car is so cool,” said Oprah. “It has one of the most powerful engines on the road.”

Teachers and ministers and nurses and caregivers who had been walking to work for years or taking buses and having to transfer three times were thrilled by their life-changing gifts. However, almost immediately they learned they would have to pay taxes (approximately $7,000) on the cars, because they were considered prizes rather than gifts. Many turned to Oprah for help, and her publicist said they had three options: They could keep the car and pay the tax, sell the car and pay the tax with the profit, or forfeit the car. There was no other option from Oprah, and Pontiac already had donated the cars and paid the sales tax and licensing fees.

“Was this really a do-good event Winfrey pulled off,” asked Lewis Lazare in the
Chicago Sun-Times,
“or a cold-blooded publicity stunt carefully designed to make the talk show diva really look good at the expense of Pontiac, which gladly provided cars in exchange for some of Winfrey’s promotional plugging?” He added: “It’s increasingly apparent she’s…become an unabashed shill for a slew of marketing-savvy companies salivating at the prospect of getting her to back their products in the hope big sales will ensue.”

Oprah was incensed. “For all the people who say, ‘Oh, you didn’t personally pay for the cars yourself,’ which I heard, I say, ‘Well, I could have, and what difference does it make, if they get the cars? And why should I have paid for them if Pontiac was willing to do so?’ ”

By then she was surfing on high waves of spending, and sounding a trifle cavalier as she discussed her $500 mink eyelashes, her
one-thousand-thread-count sheets, and FedEx-ing her horses from her farm in Indiana to her house in Hawaii. She frequently name-dropped when talking of the celebrity gifts she had received, such as the twenty-one pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes ($1,600 a pair) from Jessica Seinfeld; the Rolls-Royce Corniche II convertible ($100,000) from John Travolta; the roomful of Casa Blanca lilies from
American Idol
judge Simon Cowell, which she said “looked like a Mafia funeral”; and the white Bentleys ($250,000 each) that she and Gayle received from Tyler Perry. “I call him my rich Negro man,” Oprah told viewers.