Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [161]
This was too much for the woman who saw herself as the paragon of truth and honesty. Her producers stopped communicating with Frey and demanded the publishers defend their disputed book. Anchor and Doubleday quickly offered the New York Times interviews with two men from Hazelden to support Frey’s accounts, which they basically did, but there was still no editorial support for Frey anywhere in the country, and Oprah, according to her producers, felt trapped. “They were getting too close,” said one. “We started to get investigated, and Oprah said we had to put a stop to it.”
The producers summoned Frey and his publisher, plus some of the columnists who had condemned Oprah’s defense of the book, for a show on January 26, 2006, which they said was to be titled “Truth in America.”
Nan Talese, publisher of Frey’s hardback, and two of Doubleday’s publicists accompanied Frey to Chicago. Seconds after they walked into Harpo they were separated: Frey was sent to one dressing room, the publishing representatives to another. Right before the show, Ellen Rakieten dashed into Frey’s room and, in front of someone present, said, “Hey. We changed the show to ‘James Frey and the A Million Little Pieces Controversy.’ You are going to be on the entire hour. It’s going to get pretty rough, but hang on. I promise you, there will be redemption for you at the end.” Rakieten was right—about the rough part.
For the next hour Oprah gave her viewers a startling performance of fire-breathing indignation. She ran a statement from William Bastone of The Smoking Gun, who said, “Turns out he’s a well-to-do frat boy who … isn’t kind of this desperado that he’d like people to think he was.… He has been promoting the book for two and a half years and basically has lied continuously for two and a half years.” She then ran Frey’s response on Larry King Live that he had written “the essential truth” of his life. She also ran a portion of her call to the show defending Frey and his book. Then she dropped the hammer.
“I regret that phone call,” she said. “I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter. And I am deeply sorry about that, because that is not what I believe. I called in because I love the message of this book.…” She turned to face him. “It is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped. I feel duped. But more importantly I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.”
She spent the rest of the show chastising Frey and then his publisher.
“Why did you lie?” she asked him. “Why do you have to lie about the time you spent in jail? Why do you have to do that?”
She wanted to know about the suicide death of his girlfriend. “So how did she do it?”
“She cut her wrists,” said Frey.
“And so—hanging is more dramatic than cutting your wrists? Is that why you chose hanging? Why do you have to lie about that? Why didn’t you just write a novel?”
Losing ground by the second, Frey stammered. “I think … I—I still think it’s a memoir.”
With barely controlled rage, Oprah continued: “I have been really embarrassed by this and, more importantly, feel that I acted in—in defense of you and, you know, as I said, my judgment was clouded because so many people … seemed to have gotten so much out of this book … but now I feel that you conned us all. Do you?”
Taking their cue from Oprah, the audience began booing. “Okay. Let him speak. Please. Let him speak,” she said.
Frey tried to defend what he had done. “I’ve struggled with the idea of it, and—”
Oprah cut him off. “No, the lie of it. That’s a lie. It’s not an idea, James. That’s a lie.”
Before the next break she ran tape from three journalists, who functioned as her