CB previewed Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson’s appearance on Oprah in a post yesterday morning (in a post about Fergie blaming the liquor), but I just have to talk about how crazy Fergie was now that I watched the full one-hour interview. Does anyone else think that Fergie did not help her case whatsoever with her appearance? Granted, she wasn’t Rielle Hunter-batsh-t-crazy, but she was still intensely dumb and oblivious. Exactly what turned me off about Fergie only occurred to me about halfway through the interview – she was wallowing in self-pity (“I think I’ve been a huge over-trusting idiotic stupid woman.”), but hiding it behind a veneer of being honest and straight-forward and taking the blame. She made “taking the blame” sound like a monumental achievement, when it’s like “Uh, who else should take the blame, Fergie? You did it.” I’m still flabbergasted that no one is really talking about a potential criminal investigation into the bribing scandal. Do you think Prince Andrew had to diffuse that one?

There were two points that stuck with me as being the most blatant lies – one, that this was all happening because Fergie wanted to “help” a friend who needed $38,000 (when Fergie asked for $40,000 upfront and a $700,000 wire transfer), and two, that Fergie had never done anything like this before. I’m not Eyes For Lies or Tim Roth on Lie To Me, but even I could see Fergie’s blatant lie when she answered that question. She’s a horrible liar, just shifty as hell. Princess Diana was so much better at everything!

Anyway, many of the reviews of Fergie’s performance are less than stellar, to say the least. The interview is even getting significant play across the pond, where The Telegraph declared that “Fergie’s bizarre defense of her actions in an undercover sting video, frequently in third person, did nothing to dispel the feeling that she has lost complete control of her image. Much of the interview had an absurdist quality to it.” The Baltimore Sun’s media critic also had problems with Fergie’s bizarre use of the third person:

After seeing the Oprah interview today, I have no empathy for the Duchess of York. She is as good at rationalizing away accountability and guilt as Edwards and Hunter combined — and I think Edwards is one of the lowest forms of life on this planet.

Ferguson said that she only met with the businessman because she had a friend who “urgently needed” $38,000. That seemed to take even Oprah aback.

But the strangest thing about the interview was Ferguson’s attempt — or maybe ability — to disassociate herself from the person in the film who is shown peddling influence with all the sleaze the term suggest.

“Actually, I feel really sorry for her,” Ferguson says of the person on the screen, who happens to be her. “She looks exhausted…It’s sad.”

And when Oprah says to Ferguson that it’s “interesting” (as only Oprah can something is “interesting”) that she speaks of herself in the third person that way, Ferguson launches into a psych-talk spiel about how she spent her whole life trying to be “perfect, and she acted the way she did in part because she had been “on the road” for months and “working so hard.”

A lot of us get exhausted and work real hard, Sarah, but we don’t try to sell access to our ex for a bag with $40,000 cash in it and a pledge from our new business friend that he will wire another 500,000 pounds to our bank account at a future date. Oprah, who is a very good interviewer, asked her about the extra 500,000 pounds.

“I just took a long shot,” Ferguson said.

At least, Ferguson didn’t put it in the third person and say, “That poor, exhausted, but generous woman who only met with that sleazy reporter because a friend needed $38,000 just took a long shot.”

[From The Baltimore Sun]

Ha! Was Fergie using “the royal we”. Allegedly, Queen Elizabeth speaks of herself as “we”. As in, “We are not amused” when she means “I am not amused.” Honestly, though, I don’t think Fergie was putting on airs or trying to act royal when she spoke about herself in the third person. I think she was dissociating to elicit the viewers pity. “Oh, look at the poor old thing.” And we’re all supposed to say, “Oh, no, you’re fine!” Eh. I don’t think I want her in America. Britain, can you take this psycho grifter back?

Header: Fergie on May 26, 2010. Credit: WENN.

The former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was caught up in a bribing scandal about a week ago when a video surfaced of her soliciting a $750,000 bribe in exchange for a meeting with her ex husband, Prince Andrew. Andrew is the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment,” which means that he makes business deals for England around the world. Fergie hasn’t hidden from the scandal and both issued an apology admitting guilt and made pre-scheduled public appearances, including an ill-timed event honoring her charity efforts.

Fergie lives with Prince Andrew in a home in London provided for her by the royal family along with her daughters, Princesses Beatrice, 21 and Eugenie, 20. It’s thought that Andrew has already forgiven Sarah and pledged that she can continue living with him as long as she would like. They’ve been called “the world’s happiest divorced couple,” and are said to be best friends.

Now the former Duchess is doing the ultimate in mea culpa interviews with a visit to Oprah. Her interview airs today, and advance details have her admitting that she has a drinking problem and that she’s broke. I’m really wondering how much Prince Andrew was involved and if he either turned a blind eye toward her schemes or was complicit in them. In her apology, Fergie denied that Andrew had any knowledge of the bribe, and said he “was not aware or involved in any of the discussions that occurred.” However, in the tape she told her would-be benefactor that “[Prince Andrew] knows that he’s had to underwrite me up to now because I’ve got no money.”

The devil — and booze — made her do it.

When Sarah Ferguson asked an undercover reporter for more than $700,000 in exchange for access to ex Prince Andrew — the chat was caught on tape — she was in dire straits indeed.

But has she seen the incriminating tape?

“I haven’t faced the devil in the face, because I was in the gutter at the moment,” the Duchess of York, 50, admits on the Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode airing Tuesday.

“I”m aware of the fact that I’ve been drinking, you know, that I was not in the right place.”

Insiders close to the British “Fergie” tell Us Weekly that they weren’t surprised by her bold, reckless act. “She’s totally broke,” one source insists. “Her desperation led to the lack of judgment.”

The source adds that the mother of Beatrice, 21, and Eugenie, 20, is “a shopaholic, obsessed with designers like Chanel and Hermes…she didn’t know how to stop living like a royal.”

Her next step? “She wants to start fresh in America.”

Fergie has even expressed interest in participating in the next Dancing with the Stars.

[From US Weekly]

We have just as much booze and shopping in America, maybe more so (because the stores and bars are open later!) than in England, so Fergie is going to have to face her demons no matter where she ends up. In the US she wouldn’t be hounded as much by the press, though, because we have more minor celebrities to occupy us.

Last week, Bill Zwecker in the Chicago Sun Times claimed that a “very rich” British man offered Fergie “a posh Upper East Side apartment rent-free for a year.” Zwecker also mentioned that Fergie said in a 2006 interview that she would love to do Dancing With The Stars. Maybe this scandal will help her get sober and back on her feet. She could have increased her celebrity factor enough to warrant a DWTS invitation. If celebrity mistresses can earn opportunities and notoriety, then Fergie can get some mileage out of a thwarted attempt to accept a payoff.

Sarah Ferguson is shown at a book signing in NY on 5/26/10 and out in NY on 5/25/10. Credit: Barcroft Media/Fame Pictures

Kaiser and I were just complaining to each other about how it’s kind of a dull tabloid week. Nothing of great interest seems to be happening and there’s a predominance of stories about celebrity bikini bodies and ill-advised diets. The Enquirer is running with another Oprah cover, which must be good sellers for them despite how boring they seem to the rest of us. They claim that Oprah and Gayle got in a “public screaming match” in which the words “I hate you!” were uttered. It’s just about an argument they had over some issue at a business meeting. Gayle supposedly said “I hate you when you act like this,” which is different than just saying “I hate you” and storming out.

According to the Enquirer they’re having some issues where Gayle is finally asserting herself over input into Oprah’s new cable network and isn’t having it when Oprah is trying to pull rank and shut her down. They talked it out, though, and I’m sure they kissed and made up afterwards.

The real dirt in the Oprah article is an inset story which claims that Oprah absolutely can’t stand it that Judge Judy sometimes beats her in the ratings and is vowing to crush her. She’s made it a point to ensure that Judy is never mentioned on her show or in any of her publications as she sees her as a huge rival. Plus Oprah thinks Judy is trashy for covering such low brow material with the guests in her courtroom. That’s so ripe coming from a woman who interviews pedophiles and the Octomom.

Here’s part of the Enquirer’s story:

Oprah Winfrey has vowed to burn her top TV rival “Judge Judy” before quitting her talk show, and banned her feisty ratings foe from all things Oprah, insiders say.

“The ‘Judge Judy’ show has not only tied with Oprah’s show in the ratings, it’s actually beating ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ a few times, and Oprah is furious!” an insider divulged.

“Now Oprah has made it clear that she doesn’t want Judy mentioned in her magazine, on her TV show or on her cable shows – anywhere, any time, any way. Judy is banned from Oprahland!”

The two TV powerhouses have been at odds since Judge Judy Sheindlin, who’d been a Manhattan family court judge for 14 years, debuted as “Judge Judy” in 1996, the source said.

“Oprah used to say ‘Judge Judy’ was just trashy people yelling at each other about their sordid lives,” the insider said.

“Over the years, Oprah tried to ignore the show, hoping it would go away. Instead, Judy is threatening to nudge Oprah out of her spot at the top of the daytime ratings.”

Feeling threatened, Oprah has shaken up her staff, said the source.

“Oprah wants her show to end in a blaze of glory. She’s made it clear that heads will roll if the ratings don’t climb…

“She doesn’t want cheap gimmicks and she’s rejected ideas like big giveaways. Oprah wants solid ‘idea’ shows with big guest stars…

“Just is well aware of Oprah’s anger, and she’s actually laughing about it… Judy has been telling her friends ‘Oprah started the fight, and I’ll finish it.’”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, June 7, 2010]

I kind of ignore Judge Judy and I had no idea that her show had been on so long or that she makes a whopping $33 million a year. The thing that makes me believe that The Enquirer has a very solid insider source is their insistence that Oprah isn’t relying on “gimmicks” for ratings. That is absolutely not true, but sounds just like something one of her staff members would say. I’m sure she’s presenting it that way to her people, and maybe the almighty Oprah believes that her show isn’t trashy, but it really is. The Oprah show is full of tabloid material. I had to switch off a recent episode about child brides of some cult leader it was so disturbing. Plus she always hypes her celebrity guests and was recently asking the Pinkett-Smiths about their sex life, which is a favorite topic of Jada’s anyway. Oprah just can’t stand competition. I bet Oprah’s show will really take a beating when she moves it to her OWN network anyway. Oprah can’t OWN everything. Team Judy!

Oprah Winfrey is shown on 5/9/10. Judge Judy is shown on 3/18/10. Credit: WENN.com

Dolly Parton was on Oprah last Friday and while she looked like a comic book version of herself I have to say that she was awesome. Dolly has such a wonderful view of life, and of herself. She was promoting the 25th anniversary of Dollywood and Oprah did a whole piece on Dolly’s evolution through the years. You could see Dolly gradually getting more plastic over the years, but she’s always had that great big heart that kind of shines through all that Barbie-like dazzle. Dolly told a funny story about how she entered a real life Dolly Parton drag queen lookalike contest unbeknownst to the judges – and lost! She also talked about her marriage of 44 years. She said it works because she has an agreement with her husband that he can stay out of the spotlight as long as he wants to. As for the rumors that she has an open marriage, she did say that once but claims it’s about letting her husband pursue his own interests and that she’d kill him if that involved another woman:

On her “open marriage”
Dolly and her husband, Carl, have been married 44 years.”I met him the day I got to Nashville back in 1964,” she says. “I wasn’t a star then, so I’ve never had to worry that he loves me because I’m a star and I’ve got money or make money or whatever. I know he loves me for me, and that means a lot to me.”

It’s been rumored that Dolly and Carl have an open marriage, but Dolly says statements she’s made in the past have been taken out of context. “That just means we let each other be who we are and how we are. But I’d kill him if I knew he was with somebody,” she jokes. “We love people. He knows I’m a flirt and a tease, but it’s harmless. I’ve never met the man that would take his place.”

Dolly says respect for her husband’s character is the reason Carl lives his life out of the spotlight. “Early on in my career, I’d won [Song of the Year] in 1966, and I asked him to go with me. … He was so uncomfortable,” she says. “He said: ‘Now I want you to do everything you want to do. I want you to enjoy every minute of your life. But don’t you ever ask me to go to another one of these things. Because I am not going.’”

Dolly says she never asked him to make another public appearance. “He’s proud of me. He’s just basically shy about things like that. He doesn’t like crowds,” she says. “And I respect his privacy. I respect the fact that he loves to be out of the limelight. That’s one of the reasons I think we’ve lasted so long.”

On losing a Dolly Parton lookalike contest
Dolly admits she once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest in Santa Monica. “Lots of drag queens dress up on Halloween like Dolly, and that was back when everybody was dressing like Cher or like me. So I thought how fun would this be?” she says. “I just kind of over-exaggerated everything I am—bigger hair, bigger beauty mark, bigger boobs, if you can imagine.”

Standing just over 5 feet without heels, Dolly says she was the smallest contestant there. “Here all these big drag queens are at least 6 feet tall with their high heels,” she says. “I was kind of lost in the shuffle. They didn’t take me serious at all.”

Dolly ended up coming in second place. “I did it just for fun,” she says. “It was just fun to tell the story.”

[From Oprah.com]

There are videos on Oprah’s website of Dolly and Kenny Rogers singing The Gambler with Oprah. Oprah is a huge fan, who knew? Dolly and Kenny also sing Islands in The Stream. In another video, Dolly shows us inside her fabulous tour bus complete with her giant pink bed, a tiny bathroom with a separate shower, a vanity, and a closet full of wigs. Dolly also explained that she even cooks on the bus and is currently on a low-carb diet during the week and eats what she wants on the weekends. I love Dolly!

Photos are screenshots from videos available on Oprah.com, and of Dolly out to dinner at Madeo in Hollywood on 4/23/10. Credit: Fame Pictures

Did everyone watch Tom Cruise on Oprah on Friday? It was pretty awesome, although Tom wasn’t even one-twentieth as crazy and hyperactive as he was for his last in-studio sit-down interview, which was the infamous couch-jumping incident from 2005. “Tom Cruise: The 2010 Version” was very focused, very “on point” and his voice came close to lulling me to sleep. So… he’s either back on his medication (the medication he was maybe off of in 2005?) or he got some new drugs that make him intense and dare I say… lethargic? He seemed to be speaking very slowly, or was that my imagination?

But the whole interview did me make feel for Tom a little, so I guess it achieved what he wanted. With the incessant Xenu-talk, it’s easy to forget that to most people (like Oprah, and like his fans), Tom is a really nice guy, and a total pro. Tom stayed on message during the first part of the interview, the one-on-one with Oprah. The message? “I’m sane, and heterosexual, and I love my family.” I hate his repetition of “Kate” though. You know everyone associated with Xenu probably calls her “Kate”. She must whisper to herself some nights “Katie, Katie, Katie” while she weeps. He even talked about their charity performance of “Whatever Lola Wants” a few weeks ago. And of course, Tom talked about Suri, of course, and about how whatever Suri wants, Suri gets. Diva!

Suri Cruise plays a pivotal role in the Cruise household as the family’s stylist – not only to mom Katie Holmes, but also to her famous dad.

The 4-year-old, who helped pick out Holmes’s designer outfit for a red carpet event in October, also frequently offers style tips to Tom Cruise, too.

“She tells me what to wear,” Cruise, 47, says on The Oprah Winfrey Show Friday. “She just likes to dress herself, wear whatever she wants,” he adds of the burgeoning fashionista. “If she wants to wear it, she wears it.”

The young Cruise, who’s been spotted sporting everything from Burberry to a Spanish flamenco dress and heels, “is such a happy, easy, fun girl,” says her proud dad, adding that all the paparazzi attention doesn’t upset her.

“She just deals with it,” he says. “We don’t make it a problem. You get used to it after so long.”

Plus, she takes after her mom, who according to Cruise, is “a very relaxed person.”

[From People]

Tom and Oprah also talked about his two older kids with Nicole Kidman, Connor and Isabella. Surprisingly, Oprah showed lots of current photos of both kids (both are teenagers). I thought Tom and Nicole were both still playing the “you shouldn’t take or show photos of the older kids” game, but I guess not. Tom didn’t seem to have a problem talking about Connor’s burgeoning acting career, or Isabella’s dating life. Whatever Xenu wants, Xenu gets.

Header & additional pics: Tom, Kate & Suri in Spain on July 12, 2009. Credit: WENN.

Before we get started, let’s just wish our Sparkles a happy birthday, shall we? He’s 24 years old today. You know the Twihards are calling in sick to middle school (and their moms are calling in sick to work) so that they can do an epic viewing of Twilight and New Moon whilst masturbating.

To celebrate the sparkly occasion, Page Six has a funny story about an alleged fight between Pattinson and Kristen Stewart while they were in Canada doing reshoots on Eclipse. First of all, according to this story, one scene in particular was being reshot because K-Stew thought her wig looked jacked. Funny (and true). But the real scandal was that Kristen thought Sparkles took a later flight to Canada so that he could spend time at a London “burlesque bar”.

“Twilight” heartthrob Robert Pattinson and his co-star girlfriend Kristen Stewart had a huge fight on the set of their hit movie as she accused him of hanging out late at a racy London burlesque bar.

The pair had a massive blow-up as they reshot a scene for “Eclipse,” the third installment of the “Twilight” series, at an Indian reservation near Vancouver along with co-star Taylor Lautner.

A witness told Page Six, “Kristen asked for a reshoot because she didn’t like her wig in the scene. Robert turned up later on the set. When Robert arrived, he and Kristen started fighting. She accused him of taking a later flight from London because he had been hanging out too late at a burlesque bar.”

“She accused him right in front of the director and the crew,” our source continued. “He didn’t take it well. They were both so angry, the crew had to take a break for an hour for things to simmer down.”

The lovebirds, who play Edward and Bella, quickly made up and were all smiles earlier this week for an appearance on Oprah Winfrey, where they jokingly half-confirmed their long-denied relationship.

Meanwhile, “Twilight: Eclipse” director David Slade denied he’d had a serious argument with Pattinson over claims the actor turned up late to do the rush “pick-up” shots filmed in Vancouver earlier this month ahead of the movie’s June 30 release date. Slade wrote on Twitter, “last 3 weeks have gone fantastic, pick up shoot felt more like a reunion. Rob, Kristen, Taylor the crew & I gave 110 per cent. Onwards!”

A rep for Pattinson didn’t get back to us, while Stewart’s rep couldn’t be reached. A rep for “Twilight” studio Summit Entertainment denied any fighting and said, “Rob was not late on set, he arrived later because had a different call time than other cast members. There was no row or ill feeling at all. Everything went very well.”

[From Page Six]

Of course I don’t believe Pattinson would do anything so terrible as getting a later flight just so he could see some Dita-wannabe. He would never miss a second of potential time with his beloved Kristen, especially now that she’s with child.

Speaking of, Oprah has released short teasers of today’s pre-taped interview with Pattinson, Stewart and Taylor Lautner. The Lautner headlines were pretty funny, but I’m not going to do them – something about Oprah asking him what he wants in a woman, and my first thought was “a penis”. Oh, damn, I can’t figure out to embed the Oprah video. My bad. If you want to see Pattinson talking about fame, go to Oprah’s site. Sorry!

I hope everyone watched Naomi Campbell’s epic appearance on Monday’s Oprah. It was almost as insane as the Rielle Hunter interview, only I get the feeling Oprah kind of likes Naomi Campbell, whereas Oprah thought Rielle was a crazy bitch (truth). I was proud that Oprah didn’t send softballs to Naomi the entire time, but Oprah seemed preoccupied with the whole question of “Why you so mad? What’s behind that anger?” Meanwhile, Naomi gave Oprah a look every now and then like “You want see what’s behind the anger, Oprah? It’s a bedazzled phone, and it’s coming straight for your head.”

No, I jest. Naomi did tell Oprah what it was like inside her head when she’s about to attack someone – Naomi told Oprah she “sees red” and “Then I don’t see. I act out. [Immediately afterwards] I feel remorseful. I feel ashamed. I feel for them… [I think,] ‘What have I done to them?’ If I’ve hurt them.” To her credit, Naomi did sound slightly genuine. Maybe she does feel bad after she beats someone – many abusers do. When pressed for further explanation of “why?”, Naomi told Oprah: “I think it comes from a deeper place than that. It comes from another type of emotional disorder, because it’s not just, ‘I don’t get what I want. I throw…It comes from, I think, an abandonment issue… just trying to build up a family around me that’s not my immediate family. And if I feel a mistrust, then I really just…all my cards go down.”

Naomi also talked about her cocaine addiction: “I never, ever had to have a dealer. It made you feel like insatiable, but at the end, it was a destroyer. It’s really a devil’s drug.” And her sobriety, telling Oprah she’s been sober from drugs for six years, and sober from alcohol for a year and a half.

Now, one of the more interesting parts was Naomi discussing the most recent incident of violence and insanity, when she was being interviewed by ABC News two weeks ago. When questioned by an ABC reporter about allegedly receiving a blood diamond from genocidal war criminal Charles Taylor, Naomi refused to answer certain questions, then walked out of the interview, slapping a camera on her way out. When Oprah asked her about the incident – not just the ABC interview, but the incident with Charles Taylor, Naomi’s response was very f-cked up. First, regarding the “slapping the camera” thing, Naomi said she never punched the camera, and “There definitely is sound effects… There were three cameras, and I went to walk out the door, and the other one came in the way. So I moved the first one out to get to the door, and there were two more.” But, Naomi won’t talk about the blood diamond she allegedly received because “I don’t want to put my family in danger.” Here’s more:

Naomi Campbell told Oprah Winfrey today that she fears for the safety of her family and that is why she has refused to cooperate with prosecutors who are trying a former African dictator for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors allege that Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia, gave Campbell a blood diamond, the kind of gem Taylor is accused of using to buy guns for rebel groups in neighboring Sierra Leone who terrorized civilians and killed and maimed tens of thousands.

“I don’t want to be involved in this man’s case—he has done some terrible things and I don’t want to put my family in danger,” Campbell told Oprah and her millions of viewers during an episode of the talk show that will air Monday.

Oprah was attempting to ask Campbell about a dinner in South Africa that was attended by Mia Farrow, Campbell, other celebrities and then-South African president Nelson Mandela. Charles Taylor was also present just before the dinner. According to Farrow, Campbell told her the morning after the dinner that Taylor had sent some of his men to her room in the night to present her with a large uncut diamond.

Campbell told Oprah that she was a guest of Mandela at his home at the time of the September 1997 dinner, and that Charles Taylor had shown up unexpectedly.

“He wasn’t invited,” said Campbell. “He wasn’t part of our group, but he did show up. We understood that after it was explained to us.”

At New York Fashion Week in February, Campbell denied receiving a diamond from Taylor when asked about it by ABC News.

“I didn’t receive a diamond and I’m not going to speak about that, thank you very much. And I’m not here for that,” said Campbell.

She stormed out of the interview, slapping a producer’s camera.

Campbell claimed to Oprah that there was “a sound effect” added to the ABC News reports on the incident.

ABC News did not add any sound effects to the ABC News reports on the alleged blood diamond gift, which aired April 22 on both World News and Nightline.

[From ABC News]

Really? You’re going to play the “he could come after my family if I have to admit to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague that Charles Taylor gave me an uncut blood diamond” card? How played out! Naomi is so full of sh-t it’s not even funny. The fact that she wouldn’t even answer the question about whether or not she received a blood diamond destroys whatever genuine remorse she may have had about her abusive personality.

Also, do you know what I enjoyed? Naomi’s “boyfriend” was in the audience – he’s a Russian billionaire named Vladimir Doronin. He’s married, and has been for a long time, although he told Oprah, he “has been separated more than 10 years.” I enjoyed Oprah’s judgy voice when she was questioning “Vlad” about his marriage. I chuckled, I really did. I didn’t think Oprah was that ballsy.

I’m still grappling with the hour I spent watching Oprah interview Rielle Hunter. I honestly don’t think I was prepared for “The Full Rielle”. She is… so… disgusting. And I really am searching for the best way to describe her. The one word I kept thinking throughout the interview was “inappropriate”. Like, Rielle had inappropriate reactions to questions, smiling and laughing as she discussed her multi-year affair with John Edwards. She was inappropriate in her description of the evolution of her “love” for “Johnny”. She was inappropriate in her denials, in her hedges, in her New Age-y bullsh-t lingo. She was a lot of other things too: horrible, stupid, moronic, hypocritical, delusional, crazy, asinine, and, to borrow from Robert Downey Jr., “f-cking babyshambles”.

That being said, I did have one or two moment where I honestly agreed with Rielle’s worldview. I too don’t believe that husbands can be “stolen” and that men are not possessions that two women should “fight” over. So I gave her that one point. But I took away, like, one million points every time she tried to elicit sympathy for herself, every time she laughed about having an affair, every time I saw her dumb eyes glaze over when Oprah tried to ask her something more complicated than “What does this crystal do?” Anyway, here’s a clip of the interview and some highlights:

On why she was doing this interview with Oprah now:
“It felt more right after Johnny claimed paternity publicly.”

On home-wrecking:
“It is not my experience that a third party can wreck a home. I believe that problems exist before a third party comes into the picture.”

On people’s angry reactions:
“It hurts. It hurts because they don’t know you.”

On people seeing her negatively:
“Because of the affair. And also because a lot of people bought into the myth of the marriage. The fairybook marriage … and I destroyed it.”

On how they met.
“He lit up like a Christmas tree, just white lights, just like bright as can be. I turned to him and said, ‘You’re so hot.’ And he practically jumped in my arms.”

On Edwards when they met:
“He wanted help. He wanted to be more authentic. He wanted to live a life of truth.”

On whether she spent the night the first time they met:
“On that I say, ‘Fade to Black.’”

On the Edwards marriage:
“Being a person who is committed to truth and living a lot where you’re not hiding, it’s almost like a cosmic joke to fall in love with someone who is living a big lie.”

On guilt:
“What’s so hard about it is that the power of the love does override all the issues that come up, all the judgment … our hearts were louder than the minds.”

On when why Edwards announced his candidacy in the midst of the affair:
“He was in extreme conflict about it … He was, I believe, addicted to campaigning.”

On why she thought he shouldn’t run:
“I’m conservative that way, I believe in truth. I believe you need to get all your ducks in a row and leave a life of integrity before you step out into the public.”

On watching Edwards renew his vows with Elizabeth:
“Someone who stands before God and makes a vow crushes me on the inside. That anyone can do that … I could never do that.”

On how he reacted to the news that Rielle was pregnant while he was still running for president of the United States:
“He was very gracious … I wouldn’t say he was supportive. I’d say he had a lot of issues with the timing.”

On birth control:
“We never used birth control.”

On why she agreed to the lie about the paternity of her daughter Frances Quinn:
“If he got out of the race because of her, or me being pregnant with her, and always had this thing in his head, ‘I could have been president, and some blame toward her at all; if she somehow flipped this inside her head, that it was her fault for coming into the world, that was too hard for me.”

On why she made a sex tape:
“I don’t think there was a lot of thought about what was going on in the heat of the moment … Afterward, we thought, ‘Well that was not a great idea.’”

On why she isn’t openly dating him:
“I’m a private person; it’s hard, I need boundaries. Right now I have boundaries around my personal life.”

On what she’s learned:
“I have become a better person through the process. More compassionate, more aware.”

On what Edwards thought of her doing this interview:
“He didn’t think it was a good idea.”

On having the affair:
“Our hearts were louder than the minds.”

On the pantless GQ spread:
“What I was thinking was, I would like to have one sexy shot where the world can see me as — as a beautiful woman, as opposed to all those photos that are out there of me looking like some Wicked Witch of the West, the ugliest thing you could ever imagine.”

More on the “home-wrecking”:
“I followed my heart, and I believe it was the right thing to do, which is weird — I get how weird that is — because I didn’t make a commitment to Elizabeth. I wasn’t the one lying, like, to her, and I was supporting him in his process, and his intentions never wavered. I knew that he wanted — he just had a really unique way of getting there — to live a life of truth.”

[From New York Magazine & The New York Times]

Oh, yes. She never used birth control. Dumbass.

One thing did occur to me at some point as I winced through the conversation about Edwards deciding to run for president in 2008 – seriously, how f-cking stupid, immoral, ethically corrupt, ridiculous and f-cked up is John Edwards? It’s one thing to look at Rielle and think, “Well, stupid is as stupid does” but then you have to look at John Edwards. Why? Why does he exist? How did he even get elected to anything? Why was he enabled to this pinnacle of self-destruction? How big a f-cking fraud is he?

Oh, we’ve finally gotten the first teeny-tiny clip from Oprah’s must-see interview with Rielle Hunter. The clip above is from Good Morning America, and they only show little snippets of the interview as part of a larger news story about what a f-cking lying douchebag John Edwards is. You can here several things, though. First, Oprah has her “judgy journalist” voice happening, like you can tell she’s thinking “this white bitch is crazy.” Second, Rielle’s voice is terrible. She’s all nasal, and she sounds like a Valley Girl. As for what Rielle is actually saying…

In a new clip from Oprah Winfrey’s tell-all interview with Rielle Hunter, the ex mistress to John Edwards reveals when the former Senator came clean to his wife Elizabeth Edwards about having a child out of wedlock.

Hunter tells Oprah that everyone who knew “the truth” advised Edwards against sitting down with Bob Woodruff of “Dateline” in August, 2008. It was in this interview that Edwards admitted to having an affair but denied being the father of Hunter’s baby. He later disclosed that he was in fact the biological father of the child.

“Elizabeth really wanted him to do that interview,” Hunter recalls, saying that Edwards’ wife did not know the entire truth at the time. “He came clean with her after the interview.”

Oprah says what was most surprising about her talk with Hunter was that “she doesn’t think of herself as a homewrecker.” The talk show host’s interview with Edwards’ ex mistress will air Thursday, April 29, on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

[From The Insider]

Oh, I must remember this. The show comes on tomorrow. I thought Oprah would wait for May sweeps? Guess not. As far as Rielle’s revelation that John Edwards was still lying to Elizabeth (about the baby) even as he was admitting the affair with Rielle… ugh. But it makes some kind of sense, that it went down like that. Of course, Rielle is just eager to bash Elizabeth. In the psychodrama playing in Rielle’s mind, Elizabeth is the Bad Guy.

One of Oprah biographer Kitty Kelley’s selling points for her book was the fact that Oprah’s “aunt Katherine” (who in reality is Oprah’s cousin), Katherine Carr Esters, told her the name of Oprah’s biological father but swore her to secrecy. Since Kitty made this claim, an 84 year-old veteran from Mississippi has come forward to claim that he’s Oprah’s real dad and add that he’s tried to reach out to her in the past but never heard back.

The Daily Beast has an article following up on Kelley’s claim by an author who knows “Aunt Katherine” and has worked with her while doing research on an unrelated book. Journalist Alex Heard called Katherine to get her side of the story and was told that not only did she never confide in Kelley with the name of Oprah’s supposed dad, she also wishes she never talked to her. According to Katherine, Kitty completely misrepresented herself and the purpose of her book.

My friend Katharine Carr Esters sounded forlorn this week, saying she wished that everybody—including me—would leave her alone about a subject that’s made her life miserable lately: Kitty Kelley’s bestselling book Oprah, which churns up every scoop of dirt Kelley could find on Oprah Winfrey, who happens to be Esters’s second cousin. Esters let Kelley interview her over a three-day period in the summer of 2007. Now she wishes she could take it back.
“If I had it to do over again,” she wearily said over the phone, “I wouldn’t have talked to her at all.”

The 82-year-old Esters, who still lives near the central Mississippi town of Kosciusko—where Oprah spent six years of her childhood—was quoted several times, usually attached to non-flabbergasting statements that, she concedes, Kelley conveyed accurately. One was Esters’s observation that Oprah has sometimes exaggerated the level of poverty she endured as a kid—not enough toys, too many cockroaches on the walls, etc.—to self-dramatize her rags-to-riches triumph. Another was that Oprah repeatedly said “no” when Esters asked to be invited on her TV show to publicize Esters’s self-published 2005 memoir, Jay Bird Creek and My Recollections.

“She did refuse to have me on the show,” Esters told me in her distinctly non-whiney way. “She said my book was mediocre. That it was not something that would interest anybody to read.”

But the revelation that has her in a tailspin—and that she flatly denies having said—is something that isn’t found in the book. During an April 13th Today show interview with Natalie Morales, Kelley said Esters revealed the Big Oprah Secret to her: the identity of Oprah’s biological father. (Oprah’s male parent growing up was a man named Vernon Winfrey, but the identity of her bio-dad is reportedly still unknown to her, because her mother, Vernita Lee, won’t reveal it.) From the start, Kelley has been dangling this newsmaker as a mystery morsel, a Deep Throat appetizer we’re allowed to contemplate, even sniff, but not consume just yet.

“Kelley says Esters told her that . . . Vernon Winfrey is not her real father, and spilled the beans to her about who actually is,” MSNBC.com reported that day. “Appearing surprised by Kelley’s assertion, Morales said, ‘If you reveal all of her other secrets, why not say, “Oprah, this is your father?” ‘ “…

Once Esters’ denials [that she gave Kelley the name of Oprah's father] vibrated through the ether, Kelley issued a statement that returned serve forcibly, saying the interview happened, that Kelley knows the secret name, and that she’s personally anguished to hear that Esters is now disavowing it…

As for Kelley’s dispute with Esters, I pointed out that there seem to be only two possibilities: One of them was lying, or one of them somehow forgot what really happened. Kelley mentioned one other: That Esters has been stomped into submission by an 800-pound Harpo.

“Alex, I have written about the most powerful woman on the planet,” she said dramatically. “I’m sure that great pressure has been brought to bear on Mrs. Esters.” Did she have evidence for this claim, or was it just a hunch? A hunch. For her part, Esters says she hasn’t heard from Oprah since the blowup started.

We may never know who’s telling the truth. Is Kelley capable of lying? Um, yeah, I think so—entire episodes of The Larry King Show have been devoted to illustrating that proposition. Is Esters capable of forgetting? Probably. She sounds a lot older than she did just three years ago, which makes me worry about her health. The one thing I’m sure I don’t believe is that Kelley is especially torn up about having put this great old lady in a bind. If that were a real concern, she should have never opened her mouth.

[From The Daily Beast]

I think Natalie Morales nailed it when she asked why Kelley suddenly had a ping of conscience when it came to revealing the name of Oprah’s father but wasn’t bothered about dishing Oprah’s dirt in other areas of her life. Still, according to what Kelley has said during the press tour, a lot of the book was based on Oprah’s past interviews as source material. If she was just relaying information that Oprah had already revealed, and double-checking it with sources, you can see why Kelley might hold back when it came to revealing Oprah’s dad’s name. She may also have kept that information out of the book in order to use it as a salacious selling point while making herself seem somehow righteous for excluding it. I’m on Aunt Katherine’s side, though, and this article convinced me that Kelley is at least misrepresenting what Katherine told her.