Oprah Winfrey

[BobbyD 2]

Oprah & Aniston Mock Wedding ReportsOprah Winfrey invited pal Jennifer Aniston to call into her TV show recently so the pair could address incorrect rumors the media mogul was planning to stage the actress' nuptials at her California estate. The stars mocked reports about an $8 million reception, which Winfrey was planning to stage at her exclusive Santa Barbara County home, complete with performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Coldplay. Aniston, whose telephone chat with Winfrey aired on TV yesterday, said, "It sounds like you're giving me Santa Barbara." Aniston also poked fun at press reports that she's desperately house hunting with boyfriend Vince Vaughn, adding, "I'm really good, I've got my house." Winfrey also used the show to ridicule reports she has split from longtime boyfriend Steadman Graham. The media queen insists one US tabloid took the story too far when they got hold of photos of Winfrey dropping her beau off at the airport. She mocked, "The photo they have, I was asking him, 'Are you sure you have your ticket?' but it said I was very angry that 'the tension between us could be felt by everyone in the vicinity.'" She reassured fans, "If we ever do (break-up) I promise, I promise the night it happens, if it ever happens, I will come on TV the next day and tell you."

[Freckles 79]

Oprah is so dang wealthy and has no children of her own. What do you think she's going to do with all that money when she gets old? Who will she leave it to in her will?

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

I think she'll endow a LOT of things....

[soho2chelsea 3]

Was it just me or was Ted outing Oprah a lil bit today? I guess it's not huge news, b/c a lot of people have heard the rumors about her and Gail by now, but still.

 

http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Awful/Daily2006/060420.html

 

APR 20 2006

Stedman Graham

 

A Man for All Reasons

A buncha TomKat biz in a sec, but first a little somethin' on the gal whose couch Mr. Cruise so decimated last May:

 

Ah, men are a mystery, no?

 

Take Stedman Graham, for ince. You know him as Oprah Winfrey's semi-other half. I stick in the "semi" because the odd relationship of O&S is very much not like a shark. It doesn't move forward. It doesn't bite. Or wait. Does it?

 

I'm told Oprah has been wearing a ring on her left finger. Yet the TV doyenne and her man do not even live together--so say some of their more ballsy confidantes. And other sources deep inside the Windy City set roll their eyes and check behind their backs before scoffing at the notion of these lovebirds ever settling down.

 

"He only comes into town when she has some sort of function to attend," blabs one bitchy broad, who knows the O-gal's schedule veddy well.

Oprah Winfrey

 

And lemme say right now to all you nasty things out there who think I don't care for the TV billionairess, you're damn wrong! I want Oprah to be happy. I want bountiful things for Ms. W.'s future--like the Oval Office, perhaps.

 

Which is precisely why she'll never run for it. Oprah is happy with having things just like they are: a man on call, not on her back (sounds kinda nice), and an adoring public instead of a bitching constituency.

 

In fact, I had dinner with Desk DeeCee this week. Asked, as I always do, "How's it lookin' for a gal in the White House, already?"

 

"Hillary still plans on running, from what I hear," barked my political insider, who knows so much about Washington she's actually privvy to what kind of booze each prez has preferred from their private butlers late at night. (Clinton liked vodka, by the way. Straight, on the rocks--no wonder he went awry with the interns!)

 

Back to Hil-babe's running in '08: "She actually thinks she can win, can you believe that?" rhetorically rammed my Potomac source. "No chance in hell."

Jennifer Aniston

 

Well, before we explore that cloudy theory, let's get back to Oprah and Stedman and other celeb mushiness:

 

Maybe S. is just busy a lot, right? Personally, I think part of Oprah's genius is her control. We see Ms. Type Triple-A, and we want to believe whatever she's saying or shopping, whether it's a new diet drug or a thisclose friendship with Jennifer Aniston.

 

Alas, believing in anything a celeb does or does not do is a dangerous game. Read on...

Edited April 20, 2006 by soho2chelsea

[k80cat 0]

Actually, I think Oprah and Stedman have been married for years. One of those secret-marriage types.But that doesn't mean she's not bi (or gay). She's so all-into the "Be Yourself" religion, it would be very ironic if she was in the closet. But she's dragged out so many personal skeletons before, why not drag out this one? BTW, you know who her fave guy is in Hollywood? Miss Travolta. She just GUSHES about him.

Edited April 20, 2006 by k80cat

[soho2chelsea 3]

I don't know much about Oprah but I do know that many people I know seem to believe that she and her "best friend" Gail are actually in a commited relationship and Steadman is her beard. Don't know if this is true or not but I have even been hearing people joke about it in the media lately and it has been in some of the tabloids. So I took Ted's column as sort of hinting at this too (and maybe saying that this was why she would not run for office, and also that she and GAIL had gotten engaged/committed)

 

Here is the picture Ted put on the front page of the column today which I also found interesting

 

Edited April 20, 2006 by soho2chelsea

[BobbyD 2]

UNFAIR TO RAPLUDACRIS is dissing Oprah Winfrey. The rapper-turned-actor was miffed when he went on her show to promote "Crash" and got severely edited because Winfrey has a rule of not promoting rap or rappers. "She edited out a lot of my comments while keeping her own in," Ludacris told GQ. "Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination, and she gave me a hard time as a rapper when I came on there as an actor. I don't see why people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, who I am huge fans of, it's OK for them to go on 'Oprah.' They speak the same language as I do, but they do it through comedy, so I guess that's acceptable."

[BobbyD 2]

ABC Lines Up Oprah's 'Legends'Sweeps special will feature interviews, highlights of 2005 eventApril 24 2006 Oprah WinfreyABC is bringing Oprah Winfrey to primetime during May sweeps, scheduling a special that looks back at the daytime TV titan's "Legends Ball" last year.The hour-long special, appropriately titled "Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball," will feature footage from the 2005 event that brought together 25 African-American women for a three-day celebration of their lives and work. Among the honorees were Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Coretta Scot King, Aretha Franklin, Toni Morrison and Ruby Dee."These women, who have been meaningful to so many of us over the years, are legends who have been magnificent in their pioneering and advancing of African-American women," Winfrey says. "It is because of their steps that our journey has no boundaries."The special is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. ET Monday, May 15, leading into the two-hour season finale of "Grey's Anatomy." It will feature interviews with some of the honorees and others who attended the ball, along with footage from the events of the weekend: a lunch for the honorees, a formal, white-tie ball and a gospel brunch that featured the likes of Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight.In addition to the honorees, among those in attendance at the weekend's events were Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier, Angela Bassett, Tom Cruise, Barbra Streisand, Sen. Barack Obama, Maria Shriver and Quincy Jones.

[BobbyD 2]

50 Cent Sounds Off About Oprah WinfreyHe usually saves his beefs for other rappers; this time, 50 Cent is going after Oprah Winfrey. In an interview with The Associated Press, 50 complained that Winfrey rarely invites rappers on her talk show: "I think she caters to older white women." "Oprah's audience is my audience's parents," the 29-year-old rapper said. "So, I could care less about Oprah or her show." He's not alone in his resentment toward the talk show host cum media mogul. Rapper-actor Ludacris, aka Chris Bridges, said in the May issue of GQ magazine that Winfrey was "unfair" during a show he appeared on last October with co-stars from best-picture Oscar winner "Crash." "She edited out a lot of my comments while keeping her own in," he said. "Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination, and she gave me a hard time as a rapper, when I came on there as an actor." Winfrey's representative at her production company, Harpo, told the AP that Winfrey was unavailable for comment. But, as 50 Cent said, Winfrey's purported disapproval might enhance a rap star's street cred. "I'm actually better off having friction with her," he said. The crack-dealer-turned-rapper has sold millions of records gleefully flaunting his gangsta image, explicit lyrics and bulletproof vest (he was famously shot nine times). He has his own record label, G-Unit, the G-Unit clothing line, his own sneaker line with Reebok and a videogame, "Bulletproof." And he wears his rough-and-tumble reputation proudly: "I don't mind it. I've actually accepted it." The rapper, who's signed to close pal Eminem's Shady/Aftermath label under Interscope Records, said he recently attended Proof's wake with Eminem. Proof, a friend of Eminem's, was shot and killed earlier this month during a dispute in a Detroit nightclub. "He's coming along," he said of Eminem. "He's gonna be all right. I mean, it was definitely a big loss for him. Proof was actually his best friend in the world from forever." On the heels of Proof's death, a study released last week by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation a nonprofit public health research group suggested that young people who listen to rap music are more prone to alcohol and drug use and aggressive behavior. But 50's not buying it. He points a finger at parents, who he thinks should explain to their children that his music is a form of entertainment, not a license to break the law. "I think that the violence that happened to Proof and the violence that's happening across America right now has nothing to do with hip-hop," he said. "It has something to do with the people the state of them and the music doesn't alter that."

[princess 1,712]

people.comMONDAY, MAY 15: The queen of daytime TV is coming to primetime with her ABC special, Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball (8 p.m. ET), which goes behind the scenes of last year's gala weekend honoring 25 legendary ladies – including Tina Turner, the late Coretta Scott King and Diana Ross. The all-star affair features footage from the Winfrey's Montecito, Calif., home, an A-list party where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes mingled with Sidney Poitier, and a rousing gospel brunch featuring performances by Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle.

[Queen G 0]

The divine Miss Winfrey? By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY

Thu May 11, 7:28 AM ET

 

After two decades of searching for her authentic self - exploring New Age theories, giving away cars, trotting out fat, recommending good books and tackling countless issues from serious to frivolous - Oprah Winfrey has risen to a new level of guru.

 

She's no longer just a successful talk-show host worth $1.4 billion, according to Forbes' most recent estimate. Over the past year, Winfrey, 52, has emerged as a spiritual leader for the new millennium, a moral voice of authority for the nation.

 

With her television pulpit and the sheer power of her persona, she has encouraged and steered audiences (mostly women) in all matters, from genocide in Rwanda to suburban spouse swapping to finding the absolute best T-shirt and oatmeal cookie.

 

"She's a really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa," says Kathryn Lofton, a professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who has written two papers analyzing the religious aspects of Winfrey. "Oprah has emerged as a symbolic figurehead of spirituality."

 

On Monday, Winfrey shares one of her most ambitious events of the past year -Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball- as a special on ABC (8 p.m. ET/PT). It lets viewers in on a weekend in which she invited 25 legendary black women and other guests to her home in Montecito, Calif., for a luncheon, ball and gospel brunch in their honor.

 

It was something she spent a year planning and describes as one of the "greatest moments" of her life. She appears on The View on Friday to talk about the special.

 

"This weekend was the fulfillment of a dream for me: to honor where I've come from, to celebrate how I got here, and to claim where I'm going," Winfrey says on her website. And now, as Winfrey "lives her best life," as her TV motto says, we get to experience it with her.

 

Although the concept of the Rev. Oprah has been building through the years, never was it more evident than this season of her talk show, during which she conducted the public flogging of author James Frey. Feeling stung and embarrassed after endorsing his memoir about addiction, A Million Little Pieces, which turned out to include exaggerations and falsehoods, Winfrey had Frey on the show to do an about-face.

 

"I left the impression that the truth is not important," she said on the show. "I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe."

 

It was a watershed Winfrey moment, showing herself as not only a talk-show host with whom you don't want to mess, but also someone who is fully aware of the power of her own image. Think back: She appeared in New Orleans to take on the government after Hurricane Katrina hit last August, and she sent a message to us all about civil rights as she stood by the casket of Coretta Scott King in February. Last week, she shed a tear with Teri Hatcher over sexual abuse memories, and she jumped on the Darfur bandwagon, encouraging viewers to support refugees there.

 

"She's a moral monitor, using herself as the template against which she measures the decency of a nation," Lofton says.

 

But while this past year showed Winfrey at new heights, it also was a year that polarized people, particularly after the Frey incident.

 

"A self-righteous attack dog," wrote arts and culture critic Steven Winn in the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

"A sanctimonious bully," said media critic Robert Thompson on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

 

"She puts the cult in pop culture," wrote media critic Mark Jurkowitz in The Phoenix

 

Winfrey was applauded by many for her public mea culpa and for getting Frey to do the same, but her righteous demand for justice also evoked criticism.

 

"No one person should have that kind of power to affect markets, politics or anything else," says Debbie Schlussel, a lawyer, conservative columnist and blogger.

 

Deifying Oprah

 

Love her or loathe her, Winfrey has become proof that you can't be too rich, too thin or too committed to rising to your place in the world. With 49 million viewers each week in the USA and more in the 122 other countries to which the show is distributed, Winfrey reaches more people in a TV day than most preachers can hope to reach in a lifetime of sermons.

 

"One of the things that's key," says Marcia Nelson, author of The Gospel According to Oprah, "is she walks her talk. That's really, really important in today's culture. People who don't walk their talk fall from a great pedestal - scandals in the Catholic Church, televangelism scandals. If you're not doing what you say you do, woe be unto you."

 

In Ellen DeGeneres' stand-up comedy act several years ago, she included a joke about getting to heaven and finding that God is a black woman named Oprah.

 

Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey."

 

He told her she has "different gears" than most people. "You're on the top of the world, and we really do watch and listen for everything you do and say to kind of get our lives together. It's the truth."

 

In a November poll conducted at Beliefnet.com, a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture, 33% of 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons.

 

Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently suggested, "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?"

 

"I am not God," Oprah said in a 1989 story by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison that ran in The New York Times Magazine titled The Importance of Being Oprah. But at the time, Winfrey called her talk show her "ministry," Harrison wrote. It remains an interview Winfrey says she hates. In a Los Angeles Times interview in December, the talk-show host said that "at every turn everything I said was challenged and misinterpreted."

 

She declined to be interviewed for this story, and she declined to allow USA TODAY to cover her most recent, and now rare, Live Your Best Life seminars. Tickets, priced at $185 each, sold out in minutes.

 

Katrina Singleton, 34, paid $450 each for tickets to the February event in Charleston, S.C., which she purchased through a ticket broker. "For Oprah, nothing is too much," she told the Associated Press. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

 

At the seminar, according to AP, Winfrey repeatedly spoke of her relationship with God. She even sang a chorus of I Surrender All.

 

"I live inside God's dream for me. I don't try to tell God what I'm supposed to do," she told the crowd. "God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself."

 

Claire Zulkey, 26, an Oprah follower who has written about Winfrey in her online blog at zulkey .com, says, "I think that if this were the equivalent of the Middle Ages and we were to fast-forward 1,200 years, scholars would definitely think that this Oprah person was a deity, if not a canonized being."

 

Marcia Nelson says that it's not going too far to call her a spiritual leader. "I've said to a number of people - she's today's Billy Graham."

 

Nelson said that concept was most apparent when Winfrey co-hosted the 2001 memorial service held 12 days after the terrorist attacks in New York. She urged the people who filled Shea Stadium that day, and all Americans, to stand strong, rousing the audience by repeating the refrain, "We shall not be moved."

 

One of Winfrey's most appealing subtexts is that she's anti-institutional, says Chris Altrock, minister of Highland Street Church of Christ in Memphis. He says Winfrey believes there are many paths to God, not just one. After doing his doctoral research three years ago on postmodernism religion, a religious era that began in the 1970s as Christians became deeply interested in spirituality and less interested in any established church, he came up with what he calls "The Church of Oprah," referring to the culture that has created her.

 

"Our culture is changing," he says, "as churches are in decline and the bulk of a new generation is growing up outside of religion." Instead, they're turning to the Church of Oprah.

 

"People who have no religion relate to her," Nelson says.

 

Oprah's own evolution

 

When Winfrey started in the talk-show business 20 years ago, her goal was to beat Phil Donahue, then the reigning talk-show champ. As the Jerry Springer era of tabloid talk shows came into favor, she vowed to use her show to promote good, not sleaze.

 

By the late '90s, Winfrey's focus was Change Your Life TV, and a New Age message was more prevalent. She preached making the message of her life - take responsibility, and greatness will follow - the substance of the show. Keep a personal journal, purchase self-indulgent gifts, take time for you - because you deserve it. The notes rang true to millions of viewers.

 

Debbie Ford's book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, shot up the sales charts after Ford appeared on Winfrey's show in October 2000 to talk about aspects of ourselves that we deny but which can be sources of joy and strength.

 

"I think at the time when she had me and Gary Zukav and a lot of the other spiritual teachers on her show, it was her own journey, and she was taking all of the world on that spiritual evolution," Ford says.

 

Lately, Winfrey has seemed to focus more on social issues (along with the inescapable talk-show fare of celebrity guests, home and diet makeovers, and marriage and financial troubles).

 

"She's fabulous. She looks great and is not suffering," Ford says, so it makes sense she isn't exploring New Age philosophies anymore. Instead, Ford says, people now "look to her to find their greatness. She is so real. That's why people are attracted to her - for different reasons. Some people will say her brilliance. Others will say authenticity. Others will say her power. They're seeing part of themselves in her."

 

Adds Ford, "We're all on Oprah's journey, in a sense."

 

Maybe not quite "all" of us.

 

Schlussel says Winfrey followers "are incredibly gullible, bandwagon-jumping trend-slaves." Winfrey, she says, "acts as if her show has 'evolved,' but in fact, she still has the salacious sex and deviance stories, with a psychologist in the audience to make it seem highbrow and give it the kosher seal of approval. If this is the person whose morals we are putting on a pedestal, then America's moral compass is in much need of retuning."

 

The fact that Winfrey has never been married, never had children and is a billionaire distances her from her audience, Schlussel says. "How could anyone like this be in touch with the average American woman?"

 

The roots of faith

 

Lofton points out that any discussion of Winfrey should not be one that criticizes her or how she came to be a spiritual icon for the history books but one that examines how it came to be that way. "Why do we all need her so much? What is wrong with us that we so need this little woman in Chicago?"

 

Jim Twitchell, a professor at the University of Florida who has written several books about branding and describes himself as a cultural anthropologist, says Oprah reverence makes sense.

 

"Religion essentially is based on high anxiety of what's going to happen to you." Winfrey pushes the idea "that you have a life out there, and it's better than the one you have now and go get it."

 

It's most apparent in the setting of her show, Twitchell says.

 

"The guest is sitting beside her, but what she's really doing is exuding this powerful message of 'You are a sinner, yes, you are, but you can also find salvation.' What I find intriguing about it is it's delivered with no religiosity at all, even though it has a powerful Baptist, democratic, enthusiastic tone.

 

"It has to do with this deep American faith and yearning to be reborn. To start again."

 

Link here.

[princess 1,712]

NY Daily NewsSide DishOprah Winfrey made it very clear that she's serious about Stedman Graham. At XM Satellite Radio's bash at the Core Club Thursday to celebrate her new channel, "Oprah & Friends," the TV titan introduced some friends, including best pal Gayle King, who'll be guests on the network come September. "You know, there are all these rumors about us being gay," Oprah said. "We are not gay. If I was gay, I would tell you." At that, King shouted out, "Should we make the announcement now?"…

[BobbyD 2]

NY Daily NewsSide DishOprah Winfrey made it very clear that she's serious about Stedman Graham. At XM Satellite Radio's bash at the Core Club Thursday to celebrate her new channel, "Oprah & Friends," the TV titan introduced some friends, including best pal Gayle King, who'll be guests on the network come September. "You know, there are all these rumors about us being gay," Oprah said. "We are not gay. If I was gay, I would tell you." At that, King shouted out, "Should we make the announcement now?"…

Now that is yet another Dumb ass quote...There is no way she would admit to being gay. Her audience would drop so damn fast...

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

I'm torn on this, because I think Oprah and Gayle are together--THAT way--but at the same time, I sort of believe Oprah that if she were gay, she would tell people.....At least by now, after she's been on tv for 25 years and has so much money.....She'd be at the right point in her career for it not to hurt her too much....Posting at same time as Bobby--Her audience might drop but I don't know that she'd care--hasn't she said she's going to quit the talk show after 25 years? Isn't that, like, now?

Edited May 15, 2006 by Hoyaheel

[ebonylove 0]

That wouldn't be completely that her audience would not drop if she came out.Take rosie for instance when she chose to come out after proclaiming ambiguity for so long. She claimed at times she wasn't gay and that she loved Tom Cruise and the time and how she loved the children. She was the most popular Talk show host next to Oprah and then she came out of the closet and where is she ever since. No one cares what she thought anymore cause all they saw was gay.Oprah is not that stupid don't expect her to come out the closet. How would june clever america related to her then. Come On People.

[Blondie 0]

From the NY Times:

May 11, 2006The Oprah Treatment By NATASHA SINGERFEW Americans had heard of a beauty treatment called Thermage until Oprah Winfrey began championing it on her talk show. Billed as a procedure to tighten skin, Thermage uses a radio-wave emitting machine to heat and expand collagen beneath the skin's surface.In episodes with names like "How to Stop the Clock on Aging," "Look Younger! Live Longer!" and "Look 10 Years Younger in 10 Days," Ms. Winfrey introduced Thermage as one of the "latest cutting-edge treatments" and as a "lunchtime face-lift" that requires no recovery time. When Thermage was first showcased on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2003, "the show drove so much interest that our sales reps were selling machines over the phone," said Stephen J. Fanning, president and chief executive of Thermage Inc., which sells machines to doctors for about $30,000.And every time "Oprah" reruns one of its Thermage episodes, most recently last summer, traffic on the Thermage Web site (thermage.com) spikes to 30,000 hits for the day, Mr. Fanning said. Ten to 14 percent of the people who visit the site after seeing an "Oprah" episode end up visiting a doctor's office to have a facial procedure, at an average cost of $3,500, he added.Ms. Winfrey's ability to create best-selling books with an endorsement on Oprah's Book Club is well known. Much less recognized is her Midas touch in the beauty industry. With an average of about nine million viewers daily, the "Oprah" show drives enormous traffic to cosmetics counters, spas and doctors' offices when she endorses a product or a treatment, according to beauty industry executives."Getting on Oprah is like winning the lottery," said Marianne Diorio, senior vice president of global communications for Estée Lauder. "Because her audience really trusts her, if Oprah or her producers sincerely fall in love with some product or person, the results can be spectacular," Ms. Diorio said.The skin-care brand Philosophy was sold only in a handful of stores when Ms. Winfrey included its Hope in a Jar moisturizer in a 1996 episode. "She took this obscure little company and gave us national name recognition," said Cristina Carlino, founder of Philosophy. The brand now sells in Nordstrom, Macy's and Sephora stores and on QVC. Last December, when Philosophy Amazing Grace Shower Gel appeared on "Oprah," the product's monthly sales increased to 18,000 bottles from 3,000 the previous December, said Ms. Carlino, who calls her manufacturing plant "the house that Oprah built."But a number of doctors say such an impact is more problematic when the beauty treatment being featured is medical, with possible complications, rather than simply a cosmetic or spa procedure. In its desire to be the first show to introduce the latest anti-wrinkle options, "Oprah" sometimes features treatments before doctors have determined how effective they are, who they are best suited for and how safe they are, according to some leading dermatologists and plastic surgeons."Cosmetic procedures are presented in a casual, cavalier fashion that gives people a false sense of security about safety," said Dr. Amy E. Newburger, a dermatologist in Scarsdale, N.Y., who is a consultant on the Food and Drug Administration's General and Plastic Surgery Devices Panel, a committee that issues recommendations on whether new devices should be approved. Emphasizing that she offered her own opinion, not that of the agency, she added: "Do you remember how angry Oprah was when she found out that fellow lied to her about his memoir?" She was referring to James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces." "When is she going to get irate because these cosmetic treatments are not the risk-free procedures she was told they were?"Lisa Halliday, communications director of Ms. Winfrey's production company, said in a statement: "Harpo Productions Inc., as the producer of 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' presents to its viewers content that reflects research-supported emerging products and procedures." A critic, Dr. Roy G. Geronemus, a clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center, said that medical procedures were presented on the show as "a gross oversimplification.""People see a physician on 'Oprah' touting a new procedure," he added, "and they think that if it's coming from Oprah, it must be gospel."He said viewers would be better served by segments that presented more than one doctor's view of a new technology. Most important, the show should explain that some cosmetic procedures are so specialized that they are best performed by doctors with extensive formal training in facial anatomy and not by general practitioners or nurses.Last year Dr. Lisa E. Airan, a dermatologist in New York City, appeared on "Oprah" in a segment about a new nonsurgical lower eyelid lift that she developed with Dr. Trevor M. Born of Toronto. Ms. Winfrey told viewers that she had sent her makeup artist, Reggie Wells, to have an "under-eye transformation" at Dr. Airan's Manhattan office. Dr. Airan said in an interview this week that the procedure involves plumping up under-eye hollows with deep injections of Restylane, a wrinkle filler. During the procedure, she said, she is "injecting right onto the eyelid bone, between the covering of the bone and the bone itself." On the show, Ms. Winfrey did not mention the more serious complications of such an injection close to the eye, nor what skills a doctor needs to do the treatment. A number of dermatologists and plastic surgeons raised questions about the procedure's safety. Dr. Harold A. Lancer, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Calif., was so angered by the episode, which he saw when it was rebroadcast in March, that he sent Ms. Winfrey an e-mail message calling the show's dermatology component "highly inaccurate" and "extremely deceptive." He said he received a form reply by e-mail from Oprah.com thanking him for his response.Dr. Sherrell J. Aston, chairman of the plastic surgery department at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, said that a doctor who doesn't have experience operating on eye tissue may not be competent to inject Restylane around the eyes. "If any injectable went into the large vessels, it could block the orbital artery or vein, cut the blood supply off to a major portion of the eye, and you'd go blind," he said. Dr. Airan said that of the 600 patients on whom she and Dr. Born, a plastic surgeon, have performed the eye lift, three developed prolonged under-eye swelling that lasted up to three months. Television, she said, is not the place to discuss possible complications — that issue is better addressed during an office consultation with each patient. Critics of showing procedures like Dr. Airan's on television without a discussion of risks fear that demand for novel techniques will cause other physicians, with less expertise, to offer them as well. And the techniques may be too new for all the complications to have emerged. In 2004 "The Oprah Winfrey Show" gave the first major television exposure to the facial thread lift, in which threads made of surgical suture material are embedded in the face and used to hoist lax tissue. Ms. Winfrey called it "a cutting-edge procedure with no cutting edges" on the show. Dr. Karyn Grossman, a dermatologist in Santa Monica, Calif., and New York City, said she had just learned the thread-lift technique when she demonstrated it on "Oprah." Ms. Winfrey's producers "are interested in getting something out the door first before it has been shown elsewhere," said Dr. Grossman, who has had positive results performing the lift on her own patients.Since that show was broadcast, doctors have reported complications from thread lifts including scarring, indentations, bunching, dimpling, broken or lapsed threads, and asymmetry, said Dr. V. Leroy Young, a plastic surgeon in St. Louis who is the outgoing chairman of the emerging trends task force of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Thirty of 51 plastic surgeons Dr. Young polled at the society's annual meeting in April said they thought thread lifts created more problems than benefits, he said. The "Oprah" show reran the original thread lift episode last August."Oprah is well-intentioned and she doesn't give bad advice," Dr. Young said. "But if she told viewers that arsenic would make them beautiful, we'd be getting hundreds of calls from people asking us for arsenic."In the case of Thermage, the skin-tightening procedure, the dermatologist Dr. Patricia Wexler first presented it on the "Oprah" show in 2003. Dr. Wexler, who is based in New York City, told viewers that after a patient had a Thermage treatment, "the jaw line gets tighter and tighter, just like a neck-lift." But last week she said it is impossible for doctors to predict how well the treatment will work on an individual patient."I tell patients it's never a strikeout or a home run, but everyone will get on base, we just don't know which base ahead of time," she said.Since the F.D.A. approved the treatment for use on eye wrinkles and folds in 2002, Americans have had about 125,000 Thermage procedures and about 1,000 of the machines have been sold, according to Thermage Inc. of Hayward, Calif.The agency has collected 172 reports from doctors and patients of problems caused by Thermage, including facial burns and indentations. Dr. Wexler did not address the treatment's complications on "Oprah," she said, because "the number of burns were so few" that she did "not consider it a risk that was necessary to discuss in detail." Mr. Fanning, the chief executive of Thermage Inc., said in a statement that no medical procedure is risk-free and "99.8 percent of the treatments have had no adverse reports." But Dr. Gary Motykie, a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles who has become a specialist in treating burns caused by Thermage treatments, said the "Oprah" show should make viewers aware of problems associated with new beauty devices. One of his patients who had the treatment after seeing it on "Oprah" came to him with indented craters and ripples in her face and neck where the procedure melted the underlying fat, he said."The patient wanted to know how this technology could get on TV," said Dr. Motykie, whose practice does not offer Thermage. Dr. Wexler suggested a possible answer. "I always say these shows are too dreamy," she said. "They never talk about the bad because the bad doesn't sell."

[BobbyD 2]

I'm torn on this, because I think Oprah and Gayle are together--THAT way--but at the same time, I sort of believe Oprah that if she were gay, she would tell people.....At least by now, after she's been on tv for 25 years and has so much money.....She'd be at the right point in her career for it not to hurt her too much....Posting at same time as Bobby--Her audience might drop but I don't know that she'd care--hasn't she said she's going to quit the talk show after 25 years? Isn't that, like, now?

Yeah, you have to realize the consequences in business terms, Oprah is a hot commodity. That stock would plummet if she came out as gay. When she was rumored to quit, a few years back(before she signed a new deal)the stock exchange was nervous. So coming out gay would affect her stock, business interests...and before anyone accuses me of being anti-gay...check my previous posts and see I'm far from it...

[soho2chelsea 3]

I have seen Ted making more than one comment lately hinting that Oprah and Gayle are already married. Anyone else heard anything about this elsewhere?I would like to think that if Oprah were gay, she'd tell people, also - but I agree with what others have said - she's also very smart and she has got to know how much of her audience she might lose. Even Rosie has had some trouble since she came out. Oprah has a really powerful position right now, both financially and in terms of being able to do a lot of good - that would be a hard thing for her to risk, I would think.

[mf'smom 0]

There is a part of me, though, that thinks if Oprah IS gay and Gayle IS her lover and she has been lying all this time, she is one of the biggest hypocrites in the world. Imagine what it would do for gays if she in fact was gay and came out. She has more money than almost anyone. If her stock plummeted, it wouldn't matter to her, and maybe she would be shown as a woman of principle. Plus, it would show mainstream America that LOVES her, that it is OK to be gay. She should also be championing gay marriage if she's gay. If she isn't, she still should!!COME OUT OF THE CLOSET, OPRAH!!

[MC 1]

There is a part of me, though, that thinks if Oprah IS gay and Gayle IS her lover and she has been lying all this time, she is one of the biggest hypocrites in the world. 

It's not about money, it's about ego. I also think she wants to be a Maya Angelou kind of guru in the modern age and she won't accomplish that by coming out.

[mf'smom 0]

I'd be really proud of her, and I think I'd like her more. I'm not gay, but the straight world needs to realize that it is OK to be gay and gays didn't "decide" one day to be gay. If I'm straight, that's how I came out of the chute. Gays did too. If Oprah's gay, she's gay.

[Babloo328 0]

It is really hard to come out. Many people immediately judge you at the drop of a hat and it's very troubling. But then, there are people who are proud of you for doing so and others who just don't give a shit. But I'm ranting about something that's neither here nor there.I like Oprah. Despite her over-the-top bashing of James Frey (who got unfair treatment in my opinion), I think she's good for the country and promotes tolerance and togetherness and faith and all around goodness.I will be watching that special of hers on ABC next week though. The legends ball...although...why was Mariah Carey and Tom Cruise there? It's not the Legends of Crazy...

[k80cat 0]

I think if Oprah was gay, she wouldn't even address the rumors, at least not in person or directly. She would be too afraid. I think she would just avoid the topic. Plus, I've seen her get a little hot and bothered by some of her male guests, like Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. Not hysterical like Rosie used to get about Tom, but a little flushed, biting her lower lip, etc. She's got good taste!

Edited May 16, 2006 by k80cat

[BobbyD 2]

Plus, I've seen her get a little hot and bothered by some of her male guests, like Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. Not hysterical like Rosie used to get about Tom, but a little flushed, biting her lower lip, etc. She's got good taste!

Acting...Gotta be. Gayle's her lady.

[BobbyD 2]

OPRAH'S BLESSINGDISGRACED former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey is going to get the star treatment from Oprah Winfrey. The daytime talk queen has booked the pol, who resigned and came out of the closet after admitting he'd given his secret male lover a job, to appear in September for the launch of his tome, "I Am a Gay American." But unfortunately for McGreevey, the tell-all is not being mulled for an Oprah's Book Club selection, her camp told us