Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [173]
One of the biggest celebrity “gets” for The Oprah Winfrey Show was not a member of AFTRA but could have used the $537 check, after being shortchanged by the House of Windsor in her divorce. Sarah, Duchess of York, was better known as Fergie, a name inextricably linked to the phrase “toe sucking” because of photos taken of her with her lover, which led to the dissolution of her marriage to the queen’s favorite son, Andrew, Duke of York.
“Oprah almost lost that interview because her producers insisted that Sarah appear on the show wearing a tiara,” said an ABC executive involved in the negotiations. “Oprah’s producers do Oprah-speak: ‘Oprah wants,’ ‘Oprah says,’ ‘Oprah insists.’ On this issue Oprah was really adamant.
“ ‘Oprah thinks it would be quite royal.’
“ ‘No way,’ said Sarah’s publicist.
“ ‘No tiara, no interview,’ said Oprah’s producers.
“This bubbled up into a real crisis,” said the network executive. “Oprah’s producers were dead serious about the tiara and pushed until Sarah’s publicists almost canceled. There were two days and nights of high-level fits around here.… Finally Oprah’s side gave in and Sarah appeared on the show to promote her book—without a tiara.”
The disgraced duchess was as close as Oprah ever came to interviewing British royalty. She had met Diana, Princess of Wales, in April 1994, when she lunched with her at Kensington Palace. “We had an honest and fun conversation when I came over for BAFTA,” said Oprah. (The British Academy of Film and Television Awards had named The Oprah Winfrey Show “Best Foreign TV Program.”) “I found her so charming, but she wasn’t interested in doing an interview, so I didn’t push it.” After their lunch, the princess, still married to the Prince of Wales, sent Oprah a black-and-white photo of herself signed simply “Diana x” in a sterling-silver frame monogrammed with the initial D. She later gave her tell-all interview to the British broadcaster Martin Bashir.
“The Princess chose him over Oprah because she felt she’d make more impact in Britain with a flagship programme such as Panorama, and because it was the BBC,” said Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell in an email. “Martin Bashir also promised her full control. It was nothing to do with Oprah and everything to do with [Diana’s] focus on the British market and sending out her deliberate message to the British people. It was a carefully managed event and the location/context was upper-most in her mind.”
When Sarah Ferguson first appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show she was promoting her book My Story, which touched on her conviction that Buckingham Palace had plotted to destroy her. She appeared a year later as a spokesperson for Weight Watchers and mentioned moving back in with Prince Andrew. She drew audible gasps from the audience when she discussed how she and her ex-husband shared the same house with their two daughters and accommodated each other’s liaisons, a titillating revelation that gave Oprah the kind of news coverage she and her producers craved.
Oprah’s producers were known to make outrageous demands of guests. “If she wants you on her show, her producers possess your life for weeks beforehand, and you and your family and your friends must be available twenty-four hours a day every day that they want you,” said a publishing executive who has booked many authors on The Oprah Winfrey Show. “If it’s three weeks, then you must be available morning, noon, and night for twenty-one days, but it’s usually well