Oprah Act Two

EW: How did it go?
OW: (Long pause.) It went about as well as could be expected. You know, (I said), "I just understand you didn't know what to do. And I accept that."
EW: You mean your father never said, "Oprah, it wasn't your fault," and tried to help you?
OW: No. That was the whole point of all my stuff. I felt that I had caused it just like every other kid who's been abused. They make you feel you (were somehow responsible), not by the words they say but by asking, "What were you doing, what were you wearing?" When I spoke to my father last summer, you know what his response was? "Were you raped? Did he rape you?"
EW: Why did he ask that? Wasn't it already established?
OW: What he was really saying was, "Were you forced against your will? Did you actively participate?" That's when I said, "You don't get it-when you're 13 years old and in the car and it's happening, it is rape."
EW: Was he was trying to downplay it?
OW: Yes. Even then, though, he was saying, "Well, I was going to give him-the uncle-my old car and I don't know what to do." 'Cause I had given my father a new car. I said, "You should do exactly what you feel. You wanna give him the car? Give him the car."
EW: Has your father been in touch with your uncle all these years?
OW: Yeah, but it's been somewhat strained. I had told (my family) at the time (it happened), but nobody wanted to listen 'cause my uncle said it didn't happen. What I have said to my father was this: "I'm not comfortable being around him and if he is at your home and I'm coming, I won't come." There was a situation last spring where the uncle was at the house and my father said, "He's here-what do you want me to do?" I said, "If he's in the house already, don't put him out because of me." So I was in the house scrambling eggs for the uncle.
EW: Why did you scramble eggs for him?
OW: 'Cause he wanted eggs. 'Cause we were all in the kitchen and everyone was pretending like nothing had ever happened. It was my aunt in the kitchen and my father and the uncle.
EW: But the whole country knows about your uncle
OW: The whole country knows! And we were in the kitchen scrambling eggs as though this thing had never happened. I was still trying to be a nice person, not to make people uncomfortable. It was weird. I felt like I was out of my body.
EW: Have you confronted your uncle?
OW: No. Never have.
EW: So you've told the world, but the two of you have never talked about it.
OW: Never talked about it.
EW: So your family is as dysfunctional as everyone else's.
OW: Yup, it's like, "Pass the orange juice!"
EW: Is some of what you've been going through, (especially DiMaio's departure, since she was known for tough shows), part of the reason you want to do softer, less sensational shows?
OW: I resent the word soft. (Laughs.) Get that down. (Leans over tape recorder and yells.) I resent the word soft! I want to stand for something of value. That's why I won't do films or TV with acts of violence. Some of my nieces and Stedman's daughter were visiting me recently, and they were watching TV. This woman was being stalked and they were sitting there peeling an orange watching this like I used to watch Andy Griffith, hardly noticing it. I said to them, "That is you on the screen, every time a woman is raped, killed, that is you, and that you can sit here and peel an orange, I am insulted." And they said (affects high voice), "How is that us, Aunt Oprah?"
EW: How do you feel about the backlash against trash television and being lumped in with it?
OW: I've been guilty of doing trash TV and not even thinking it was trash. I don't want to do it anymore. But for the past four years we've been leading the way for doing issues that change people's lives. So I'm irritated and frustrated at being lumped in with the other shows. I think I'm blamed for it all. There was an article on the Oprah-ization of America, lumping me and O.J. going down the freeway in the same category. I'm thinking, "What is he talking about?"
EW: Was there a time when you did a trashy show and realized you didn't want to do them anymore?
OW: Uh-huh. The day I felt clearly the worst I've ever felt on television was sometime in '89 when we were still live and we had the wife, the girlfriend, and the husband, and on the air the husband (unexpectedly) announced to the wife the girlfriend is pregnant. And the expression on her face-it pains me to think of it-I looked at her and felt horrible for myself and felt horrible for her. So I turned to her and said, "I'm really sorry you had to be put in this position and you had to hear this on television. This never should have happened." That's when I said, "We cannot do this anymore." I can't say we never did another show with conflict, but that's when I first thought about it. I see all this, quote, trash TV now and I say to the producers, "Did we do that?" And they'll say, "Oh, yeah, remember the time we had I Don't Want My Daughter to Date a Black Man and we had this redneck father on and he was screaming."
EW: What do you think of some of the other talk shows?
OW: I won't name names, but I never really watched any of the others until this summer when I saw them on the monitor at the gym. I was shocked by what other people are doing on television.
EW: Will audiences still tune in if you're not doing sensational stuff?
OW: All it takes is a little courage. I'm going to risk having people call it soft or having people say, "Her show is slipping," when you drop a tenth of a point. That really irritates me. What's happened over the years is that we've become our own standard to beat.
EW: So what should we expect on the new shows?
OW: I cannot listen to other people blaming their mothers for another year. I have to move on. We're not gonna book a show where someone is talking about their victimization. I think there was a time for it. The last time I did a show on women being stalked, they said how hard it is, and I recognize that it is. But five years ago I would have been more sensitive to it. Last year I said (to the stalked women), "So move. So move!"
EW: You really seem the same off camera as you do on. Are you ever fake?
OW: (Long pause.) I would say there have been a couple of moments doing a show when I didn't want to be there and I was fake. I was watching a show I did this summer called "Burning Your Past," (in which guests wrote their problems on paper and then burned them) and I went, "Oh, God, look at that, you phony hussy, you."
EW: If you were taping your own promo, how would you describe the "next Oprah!"?
OW: Even though I never would have imagined that Debbie wasn't going to be here, we're going to grow. People here now feel a great sense of freedom, they feel creatively they can say things and not feel they'll be repressed. I'm a little more exhausted, I can tell you that. But I'm prepared to lead.
EW: Do you still feel the impact of racism?
OW: You know when I felt it? I felt it this summer when I had braids and I was just another black woman. I remember standing in line for a long time. What's interesting to me, is that most people aren't even aware they're (being racist). I've tried to do shows on racism, but I've never been able to get people to really get it. What we end up with is people shouting. What comes up over and over again is white people saying, "That was then, and this is now."
EW: Do you want to have kids?
OW: At this moment, I would say I'm not going to have kids. What it takes to do it right, I don't have it. I think it would be immensely unfair to bring a child into the world and expect that child to fit into my lifestyle.
EW: Do you ever look back to someone who wronged you and think, "Hey, sucker, look at me." Or are you beyond that?
OW: I'm not beyond that. Are you kidding? I was just reading my old journals last night and there was this one (entry) I couldn't remember writing. Lots of others I can remember, you can see the tears on the pages. But there was this one where I was writing about not being able to do enough for this guy. I think I was 24 at the time and I was writing, "Maybe if I was rich enough or famous enough or was witty, clever, wise enough, I could be enough for you." And (now) I'm thinking, "I hope he is sick (laughs wildly) every time he sees me on TV." This is a guy I used to take the seeds out of the watermelon for so he wouldn't have to spit!
EW: Are there times when you get sick of being sweet, wonderful Oprah?
OW: I get 4,000 letters a week and used to pick the ones who didn't like something and call them and make them like me. I tracked one woman down because she hated my earrings. I don't do that anymore. Once on a plane I was going to (the lavatory) and a woman came up to me and said, "Let me hug you," but I said, "Not here, not now." Later, her sister came up to me and said, "We can't believe you treated her that way." I realized that people expect you to be whatever they've created in their heads. Now I say, "I'm going to pee, sorry."
EW: Do you aggressively resist the Elvis syndrome-being off in your dark bedroom with your fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches?
OW: I have some really strong feelings about that. I think Elvis didn't have to be that. I think even Michael Jackson could go out and people would leave him alone. It's like my attitude at the gym-I'm there to work and they leave me alone. If I had signed the first autograph and done the celebrity thing, it would have been totally different.
EW: Does the affection you get from your fans make up for what you didn't get in childhood?
OW: Makes up for it 20 million-fold. I was in New York last week and I was crossing the street and a woman said, "I want to tell you how much I appreciate your evolution. I appreciate the fact that you are open enough to let us see it, because when I see that you can do it, I feel I can." (Chokes up briefly.) I wanted to weep on the street 'cause I thought, "You get it!" To me, that's better than any award, it's better than um, um, I don't know if it's better than a 13 rating, though. (Flops back on couch, legs in the air, in peals of laughter) Yeah, I'll take that 13.2, yes I will!