Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [163]
In the limousine taking everyone back to the airport Frey’s cell phone rang, but he did not take the call. The message was from Larry King, who said to call him as soon as possible.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, James,” said King. “That was awful. Oprah should never have done that to you. Never.”
The next day Liz Smith wrote in her syndicated column she was surprised “that Oprah didn’t simply hand Mr. Frey a gun and make him shoot himself on her show to make up for his ‘deception’ of her.” In an email years later she said she liked and admired Oprah, but “My only caveat is ‘absolute power corrupts,’ and in something like the matter … with James Frey … it was that kind of power. Very nerve wracking. I didn’t really think it was a matter of defending the nation whether or not he was totally accurate in his so-called memoir. It was a wonderful book and I didn’t feel his public humiliation was necessary. She originally recommended the book in good faith and nobody blamed her for that.”
Two years later, when Jessica Seinfeld appeared on Oprah with her vegetables-for-kids cookbook and was sued for plagiarism, Liz Smith wrote another column: “[I]f Jessica loses her fight … does this mean that Oprah will sit her down in her studio some day and lambaste Ms. Seinfeld the way she devoured author James Frey for not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but in his ‘memoir’? Maybe Jessica Seinfeld will win the lawsuit [she did], and that will make everything all right with Oprah. And these days, making everything all right with Oprah is practically the publishing world’s 11th Commandment.”
Harold Evans, who was president of Random House from 1990 to 1997 and just incidentally married to Oprah’s nemesis Tina Brown, faulted Oprah as much as anyone. “I think [she] did harm to the concept of the book as a valuable artifact,” he said. “It was irresponsible of her, before she blessed this piece of nonsense, not to do some checking.”
The message boards at Oprah.com had lit up with hundreds of messages after the second show with James Frey, and most of them were against Oprah for being so harsh. Many acknowledged that while Frey had lied, she had been too hard on him simply because she had been embarrassed by the media. The next day she called Frey at home and, according to someone in the room at the time, she said: “I just want to make sure you’re okay, James. You are not going to hurt yourself, are you? I’m really worried you’re going to do something to yourself.” She then shared her own personal history with drugs. “Listen, James, I, too, smoked crack when I was in Baltimore, and I did cocaine in Chicago. I, too, had a drug problem, but I finally achieved peace with my drug past and I’m hoping you can, too.”
Oprah’s phone call was of little consolation to Frey, who was fired by his agent at Brillstein-Grey and lost his movie deal with Warner Bros. Fox TV withdrew from the television drama they had signed to do, and Viking Penguin canceled his two-book publishing contract. In addition, a judge approved a settlement in which the publisher agreed to refund readers of A Million Little Pieces, but of the millions of copies sold, Random House received only 1,729 requests for reimbursement. At the end of the debacle the one person left standing in James Frey’s corner was his revered publisher, Nan Talese, who said Oprah had been “mean and self-serving,” and that she should be the one apologizing for her “holier-than-thou” attitude and her “fiercely bad manners.”
Having been accused in the past of lacking certain social graces, Oprah proved that she had at least mastered the niceties of thank-you note etiquette. The day after the show, Nan Talese received a one-page letter:
Dear Nan,
Thanks for being on the show.
Sincerely,
Oprah
“I got this tip from Bill Clinton,” Oprah said later. “You know, Bill Clinton, former president of the United States, which is to write a note on one page so it can be framed. So that’s what I do now.”
PHIL DONAHUE hung up his microphone on May 2, 1996, and when television