Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [190]
“That is not the way I raised Oprah Gail,” said Vernon Winfrey, who was so disgusted by his daughter’s embrace of New Age beliefs that he no longer watched her show. “I need her show like a hog needs a holiday,” he said. “Besides, the show is not that good anymore.”
Oprah’s “aunt” Katharine, who keeps a Bible by her bedside, was horrified by Oprah’s embrace of “that New Age nonsense,” as was Katharine’s daughter, Jo Baldwin, Oprah’s cousin, who was once vice president of Harpo. Baldwin now teaches English at Mississippi Valley State University and preaches in church on Sundays in Centobia, Mississippi. “I brought Katharine a copy of The Secret, and Jo wouldn’t get near the book—wouldn’t touch it,” said Jewette Battles.
When Oprah introduced the self-help philosophy of The Secret to her viewers, she promised they would learn “the secret” to making more money, losing weight, finding the love of their life, and achieving job success, simply by visualizing. They could have it all, just like she had it all. She then introduced the author, who explained that The Secret espouses “the law of attraction”: If you think positively, you attract good things to yourself; if you think negatively, you attract bad things. She later cited, as an outrageous example, the massacre in Rwanda, and said the victims’ feelings of fear and powerlessness had led to the carnage.
“The message of The Secret is the message that I’ve been trying to share with the world on my show for the past twenty-one years,” Oprah told Larry King on CNN. She presented two shows on The Secret, sending the book to the top of the bestseller list, where it sold more than three million copies and spawned “Secret” clubs around the world. She was promptly ridiculed for peddling what Peter Birkenhead described on Salon.com as “minty-fresh snake oil.” Comedian/talk show host Bill Maher declared the book “insane,” and The Washington Post characterized it as “slimy.” Saturday Night Live poked fun at Oprah’s obsession with The Secret in a skit in which she interviewed a poor starving man in Darfur. Putting on a deep Old Testament voice, Oprah, played by Maya Rudolph, asked, “Why do you think things are going so bad?” When the poor man couldn’t answer, Oprah scolded him, saying the atrocities were the result of his negative attitude. “When we come back, John Travolta!”
Shortly after, Oprah “clarified” her views on “the law of attraction.” She did not apologize for endorsing The Secret, but she now said it was not the answer to everything. “It is not the answer to atrocities or every tragedy. It is just one law. Not the only law. And certainly, certainly, certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme.” Interestingly, in 2009, Oprah declared in court papers that her “reputation depends, in part, on the quality of the products she recommends, which she does only after careful consideration and vetting to make sure such products meet her standards and approval.”
She certainly paid attention to her critics, especially when they reported her viewers were complaining about her meddling with their religious beliefs. Stung by articles about “The Church of Oprah” and “The Gospel According to Oprah,” she dropped “Change Your Life” television and renamed it “Live Your Best Life” television. She changed “Remembering Your Spirit” to “Remembering Your Joy.”
WHILE SOME CRITICS were writing her obituary in 1999, she was empire-building with a media move that would leave them all speechless. Joining with Hearst in April 2000, she launched O, The Oprah Magazine, which became the most successful start-up in magazine history. She put herself on the cover of every issue for the next nine years, which further inflamed her critics to produce long essays on her narcissism. They carped about “The Cult of Oprah,” because each issue of O carried “The O List” of things Oprah liked (e.g., Burberry dog collars, Fendi sunglasses, Ralph Lauren mules, Rocket e-books), plus two pages titled “Oprah: Here We Go” and “Oprah: What I Know for Sure,” in