Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [139]
Oprah’s publicist was besieged by calls from reporters about the sudden cancellation, and she danced as fast as she could trying to interpret for them “the heart of the learning curve.”
“Oprah felt it was premature [to publish] because she has a lot of positive things going on in her life right now that she would want to include in the book, like her marriage to Stedman and her recent weight loss from working out,” said Colleen Raleigh. She explained that since Oprah’s engagement she had been working with her chef and her trainer to try to lose eighty-five pounds by her fortieth birthday, and she was making excellent progress, but that didn’t carry weight with reporters, who pushed for the real reason Oprah had canceled her book, asking if it was because of Stedman.
“No, no … Their relationship had nothing to do with it,” said Raleigh. “It couldn’t be stronger.”
Despite Raleigh’s best efforts, every news story on the book’s cancellation carried the suggestion that Oprah’s fiancé was aghast at what she had written about her past sex life, and pointed out that the couple had been officially engaged for seven months but still had not set a wedding date. Erroll McDonald tried to dismiss the idea that Oprah had derailed her book because of Stedman’s objections. “That suggests that Oprah is at the mercy of what others say,” he said, “that she’s not capable of making up her own mind.” But even he did not know what had really happened.
More confusing were the conflicting stories Oprah told about whether or not she and Stedman had ever set a wedding date. In October 1993 she told Ebony:
We had decided it was going to be this fall. I had made an appointment with Oscar de la Renta. I was going to consult with the almanac on what week the leaves would be the best color and all that stuff. And then this whole book thing erupted. So we’re going to resume talking about it, I guess.
The next month (November 1993), she told Chicago magazine:
We are still getting married. But we did not set a date. Never. Let me say it again: We … did … not … set … a date. So how can we put it off? That was a notion concocted out of thin air by the press. It has nothing to do with the truth of Stedman and me.… But we will do it [get married]. Does that answer your question? This impression that we’ve broken up and gotten back together and broken up again, it is absolutely, categorically not true. Not true. It’s a media-created story. Let me say again, it is not true … we have never broken up. Not once.
That same month (November 1993) a writer from McCall’s interviewed her and noticed the books sitting on her desk: Martha Stewart’s Weddings, Eleanor Munro’s Wedding Readings, and a paperback titled Wedding Planner. Yet Oprah said, “I have never set a date for the wedding. It’s because of the tabloids that there’s a public perception the wedding has been on and off. I am in no hurry to get married. I dislike this notion of a desperate woman who wants to get married.”
Four months later (February 1994) she told Ladies’ Home Journal:
There was a time in my life when I needed marriage to validate myself. But now I’m very content with what my relationship gives me.… I’m very sorry I ever mentioned Stedman’s name to the press. This whole wedding thing might not be such a big issue, if I had never mentioned it.
Then in Vogue (October 1998) she said:
We were supposed to get married September 8, 1993. Because that was my father’s wedding day. My book, the big autobiography thing, was supposed to come out on September 12 and Stedman said, “All of that’s gonna get confused. You can’t do both at the same time. So we should postpone the wedding.” So I said, “OK, fine. We’ll postpone it.” And I will tell you, it has never been discussed again. It is not even an issue. The relationship works.
Perhaps her most telling comment was to the Daily Mail (February 2006):
He proposed about ten years ago, so I called a little gathering of a few friends and I was trembling. Gayle said, “That’s just cold feet.” I said,