Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had quite the request for Oprah Winfrey.

Wintour had told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998, the editor revealed during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview on Sunday.

“It was a very gentle suggestion,” she said, laughing. “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight.”

She added: “I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!”

Winfrey, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend. She was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: “Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover.”

“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet,” Wintour said. “And it was one of our most successful covers ever.”

In the 60 Minutes interview, Wintour, 59, also defended the use of Photoshop to make people “look their best.”

“That’s one of the things that makes me rather angry, that I don’t understand,” she said. “That if you look wonderful, does that make you less important? Less powerful? Less serious?”

Although Vogue typically only covers stick-thin models within its pages, she said her magazine maintains an awareness of obesity.

“I’d just been on a trip to Minnesota, where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses,” Wintour said. “There’s such an epidemic of obesity in the United States, and for some reason, everybody focuses on anorexia.”

Wintour, who commissioned a feature on the topic complete with illustrations, said that it was an important issue.

“We need to spend money time and education on teaching people to eat, exercise and take care of themselves in a healthier way,” she said. “It [has gotten people] provoked, which is really the point.”

(source)

• Christina Aguilera: “Inspired” to Record After Having Baby
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Oprah Winfrey’s in-house medical and health expert is leaving his spot as a regular on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” for his own syndicated program.

Winfrey will bid Dr. Mehmet (meh-MEHT’) Oz farewell on Tuesday’s episode of her talk show. His program, “The Dr. Oz Show,” is to debut Sept. 14.

Oz has been featured on Winfrey’s show for five years and 55 episodes. He would often offer diet tips or discuss life-threatening diseases.

Tuesday’s show ends with Oz and Winfrey raising a champagne toast.

According to Oz’s biography on Oprah.com, the best-selling author and heart surgeon is a surgery professor at Columbia University and directs the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

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• Oprah Winfrey Dedicates Show to Her Late Dog
• Oprah Is Moving To D.C.

Oprah Winfrey talked about courage, making wise choices and helping others during a commencement address Sunday at Duke University, which gave her an honorary degree.

During her 25-minute speech beneath overcast skies, the talk show host told the 4,400 graduates and their guests that “one of the best ways to enhance your own life is to enhance somebody else’s” and to “stand proudly in your own shoes while you help others stand in theirs.”

“How can I help somebody else move to higher ground? That is success. That’s it. That’s why we’re all alive,” she said.

She also emphasized the need to make wise choices daily, saying, “Each of us has to stand in our own shoes. Will you stand in them in humility and compassion and courage? Every day will give you a chance to make that choice.”

Duke President Richard H. Brodhead presented Winfrey with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

She also had a personal connection with the 2009 class at the Durham, N.C., school. Her godson, William Bumpus, son of her well-known friend, Gayle King, was among the graduates.

“Will never wants people to know he knows me,” Winfrey joked. “I’m like his crazy aunt that they let out at commencements.”

Preceding Winfrey was student speaker Robert Paul Jones, a 2002 graduate who returned to Duke to receive his medical degree. He teased her about her celebrity, and pretended to be interrupted by a cell phone call as he began his remarks.

“Ms. Winfrey, apparently your limousine is double-parked in front of the chapel,” Jones joked. “Duke Parking wanted me to let you know they won’t release your honorary degree until you pay your parking fine.”

(source)

• Expect some below-the-belt humor when Homer Simpson undergoes a colonoscopy
• Christina Aguilera: “Inspired” to Record After Having Baby

The upcoming paperback version of his best-selling novel, “Bright Shiny Morning,” includes two passages omitted from the hard cover, which came out last year.

The first passage is a triple X-rated story of an affair between a lawyer for the ACLU and the wife of a Republican senator who meet in a bar and proceed to have raunchy sex in bathrooms, alleys, seedy motels and the backseats of the cars. The sex scenes — deemed too racy for some readers — are included in the paperback.

The second passage is more controversial because it seems to be based on Frey and his nemesis, Winfrey. Who doesn’t remember Frey’s disastrous appearance on Winfrey’s show three years ago after his megabest-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” was found to have been embellished — an appearance that publishing legend Nan Talese, who appeared on the show with Frey, characterized as “mean and self-serving” and a “public scourge.”

The new section contains a story about someone caught up in a highly publicized controversy and a television show that he knows is going to end badly for him. When he feels people “turning on him,” he starts taping all his phone calls, including some with “the producers of the show, the executive producer of the show.” After getting publicly eviscerated, he tapes one with “the host,” where she checks to make sure he isn’t “going to hurt himself” and reveals some startling information about herself.

When asked for comment by Page Six, Frey laughed and said, “The book is fiction. Interpret it however you want.”

Near the end of the passage, the narrator informs us that he has made copies of the tapes and distributed them to friends for safekeeping.

“Someday he might discuss it,” the book says. “Someday he might tell his side of it. Someday he might play the tapes. Someday.”

(source)

• Christina Aguilera: “Inspired” to Record After Having Baby
• Kate Beckinsale’s Pre-Show Cat-astrophe

OPRAH Winfrey wants to be as close to Barack Obama as possible. Insiders say Winfrey has started a preliminary search for a home in Washington, DC. A nine-bedroom Georgetown mansion she’s said to have asked about is listed at $50 million, but another source said, “She has never personally been to see it.” We’re sure Winfrey will try to swing by during Inauguration week. Her rep didn’t return calls.

(source)

• Is Sarah Palin intentionally snubbing Oprah?
• Bill Clinton Gives Oprah Winfrey The Cold Shoulder

Broadcasting and Cable is reporting that Oprah Winfrey has signed a multiyear deal to produce scripted programming for the network. Potential projects include series, miniseries, movies and documentaries. In other words we can have O and the City, The Winfreys, In Treatment with Oprah and Curb Your Metabolism. Seriously she has her OWN network, what more does she need? I know it is Oprah, she won’t be happy until she has it all….

(source)

• Oprah Winfrey Getting Her Own TV Network
• OPRAH WINFREY OPENS CHICAGO STORE

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has basically spoken in front of most cameras put before her. So why has she yet to appear on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”?

Winfrey, who won’t be hosting her own ball for President-elect Barack Obama during the inauguration but will broadcast her show from D.C. that week, hasn’t forgotten about having the governor on.

In fact, she seems surprised that Palin hasn’t come on the show yet, despite her efforts.

“I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over,” Winfrey told Extra. “I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta Van Susteren. She talked to Matt Lauer. She talked to Larry King, but she didn’t talk to me. But maybe she’ll talk to me now that she has a book deal.”

(source)

• Move over, Tina! Palin may appear on ‘SNL’
• Five Things You Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin

Last month I had a post about how Oprah’s mom is a clothes buying machine and I guess she was under the impression that because she is the daughter of Oprah that she really didn’t need money for anything. I mean Oprah is the Empress of the world so why should her mother have to worry about trivial things like money when it comes to clothes. See, it is only about clothes and things like that. Grocery stores don’t take that kind of crap. I don’t care if you are Barbra Streisand and haven’t paid for clothes, a car, or anything in 20 years, if you want a gallon of milk, you are paying. Now that I think about it though I wouldn’t put it past Barbra that she made a deal with every company of every product she enjoys in a grocery store to have them ship her a years supply of it just so she wouldn’t have to pay for anything.

Anyway, Oprah’s mom is an idiot. This is what I hate about this kind of crap. She opened an account with the store. She signed an agreement to pay it back. She then bought $150,000 in clothes. What did she think she was signing? She claims that she didn’t know what she was signing and that she didn’t realize she was opening a charge account. Umm, they took you to court before for the same thing. I think you would have caught on by the second time that this was a charge account. If you didn’t, then maybe you shouldn’t be going outside the home, and instead should sit on your couch, drooling and watching “your shows.”

Of course also all this does is make Oprah look ridiculous since she can make it all go away by either giving her mom the money, buying the store and making it one big Christmas present to mom, or simply call upon her powers as Empress and have everyone involved shot.

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• OPRAH WINFREY OPENS CHICAGO STORE
• Oprah Winfrey’s mom O-ed earlier debt

A high-end clothing shop isn’t the only creditor to have taken Oprah Winfrey’s mother to court.

The Valentina boutique in Brookfield, Wis., sued Vernita Lee last week, saying she owes the store $156,000 for purchases and interest and failed to make the minimum monthly payment of $2,000 on her charge account. Lee said she doesn’t feel she owes them the money.

But six years ago, John Kowske had to took Lee to court in Milwaukee, where she lives, after she failed to pay him the $4,304.90 she owed him, according to papers posted on webofdeception.com.

“Vernita was a co-signer on a loan for her daughter Pat,” a source tells us. “Sadly, Pat died of a drug overdose.”

A judge ordered Lee to pay the debt, according to the papers.

Kowske could not be reached, and Lee’s lawyer, Steven Gistenson, wouldn’t comment on either case. “I’m not going to address [the boutique case] in the media - it’s going to be addressed in the courts,” he told us. “And I wasn’t involved in the previous case.”

A spokeswoman for Harpo Productions would not comment as to whether Winfrey will pay off her mother’s alleged debt.

But chances are good that the talk-show titan retained Gistenson, a prominent in lawyer in Chicago, where she lives, for Vernita. While Oprah seems to have forgiven her mother, Vernita did leave her behind with grandparents after giving birth to her at 18. Winfrey lived with her as an older child in Milwaukee, when she was sexually abused by a cousin and other male relatives. It is not known whether Vernita was aware of the abuse.

Winfrey ended up living with her father, a stern disciplinarian, in Tennessee. “No one ever told me I was loved,” Winfrey once said. “Ever, ever, ever.”

(source)

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Ahhh Oprah. Yes, it has been awhile since you entered this space. Guess you have been keeping yourself out of trouble. Nothing too shameful since the whole fake interview with Tom and Katie. You know the two parter about Risky Business and its effect on the cinema of the world. Godfather? You gave it five seconds once. Anyway, that isn’t why I brought you back to the blog. Actually I didn’t even bring you back her to talk about your mom either, because you know, parents are parents, and just because she owes $150K to a clothing store is none of my business. Instead of letting it get to the point of a lawsuit though, it would have been nice maybe to write the poor woman a check. I mean you probably have that much in the cushions in your couch.No, the reason I brought you here today Oprah is to talk to you about your water usage. Apparently you like to water your lawn a bunch. Now, I understand you don’t have a lawn in your Chicago condo, so this is directed more towards your home in Montecito which is Santa Barbara for those of you not familiar with the area. Oprah has about 40 acres at her house there which she uses infrequently. Despite rarely being there, she still managed to use over 10 million gallons of water in 2006 and again in 2007. That’s right. 10 million gallons. Now, you might say hey, what does it matter?

Well, the rest of the county has been instructed to reuse shower water, and take other drastic measures, Oprah sits on her throne and won’t even meet with county officials about her water use.

“They won’t see us,” explained water district manager Tom Mosby. “They’re very private, and trying to get in has proved very difficult.”

Uh huh. Now, lets say that you or I decided to start using 10 million gallons of water a year and the government wanted a word with us, do you think we would be able to avoid them? Hell no. So what makes Oprah so damn special? Fine, if Oprah isn’t in town, meet with someone else. How low on the Harpo totem pole do you have to go before someone can actually meet with “everyday people?” Is there not anyone who sits at the right hand of Oprah who can talk to mortals?

This is the kind of crap that just makes celebrities look even more spoiled and pretentious than they already are. When you start ignoring the government, and stop caring about what every other person is having to do to survive in the county, then you know something has to give.

Now, lest you think that things were like this on Oprah’s property were like this before she moved in, let me tell you what it used to be like. Since Oprah moved into what she calls, “Promised Land” the water usage has doubled. Doubled. Apparently Oprah must like practicing walking on water or something.

(source)

• Somebody Has To Pay
• HBO Oprah Deal

Oprah Winfrey earns a whopping $385 million a year.

Simon Cowell banks $50 million.

David Letterman? $32 million!

They’re among the stars who appear in TV Guide’s annual star salary survey, based on information from TV industry insiders and published sources.

Who else brings in the big bucks?

According to the magazine, newlywed Charlie Sheen is the highest-paid comedy star on primetime television, with $825,000 per episode.

CSI’s William Peterson — who is leaving the show this upcoming season — is the highest-paid actor in a prime-time drama, earning $600,000 per episode.

With $400,000 an episode, Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay is the highest-paid actress in a drama. Kyra Sedgwick takes home $275,000 per episode of TNT’s The Closer, making her top- earning actress on a cable network drama.

Some stars make serious money without appearing on TV at all.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who supplies the voice of lead character Peter Griffin, just signed a deal with Fox that will net him $100 million through 2012.

And The Simpsons cast — Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria — each earn $400,000 per episode.

For the complete list of star salaries, pick up the new issue of TV Guide, out August 7.

(source)

• Gisele Bundchen Tops List of Highest Paid Models.
• Oprah’s Heads Explode

BILL Clinton gave the cold shoulder to Barack Obama’s biggest supporter, Oprah Winfrey, at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday in London. A source at the dinner in Hyde Park, catered by Gordon Ramsay, told us, “There was a very cold reception between them.” When Winfrey went over to Mandela’s table, where Clinton was seated, “Oprah and Bill, who used to be very close, barely acknowledged one another,” the source said. But insiders in the Clinton and Winfrey camps claim the two spoke to each other at a private reception before the dinner. Other guests included Robert De Niro, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Kim Cattrall, Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman. And despite rumors that Naomi Campbell - who calls herself Mandela’s goddaughter - was denied presenter duties at tonight’s concert for Mandela’s 46664 AIDS charity, the cellphone-hurling catwalker was seen “hugging everyone” at the party.

(source)

• All is forgiven; McCain returning to Letterman
• Demi Moore’s daughters know it all

Its been awhile since I’ve had the opportunity to get on Oprah for something. I think it must be all of about six weeks or so since she had Tom “Napoleon Complex” Cruise on her show. Anyway, I have let Oprah be alone during her 21 day Vegan cleanse, because well, I don’t think anyone wants to get near her when she’s cleansing.As is often the case, I find myself perusing Oprah’s blog late at night, because frankly, I have no life and so I like to find others that do and pick on them. I believe Sunday was Day 21 of her cleanse and she wrote a little blog about day 20. It was probably the most pretentious 8 paragraphs I have read in a long time. What makes it more galling is that Oprah is always trying to show that she is in touch with the “everyday people” of the world. She isn’t. She used to be. I admire her more than anything for the way she has succeeded in life, but she needs to be honest with herself that the only relating to “everyday people” she does now is the one hour she does her show each day.

Here is what really ticked me off in her blog.

Day 21…yes, I want some wine. Bordeaux 82. Just one glass at sunset, almost broke down and had a glass.

Does anyone have any idea what a 1982 Bordeaux goes for? It varies, but the average price per bottle is about $600. Now, instead of rubbing her wealth in the noses of people who don’t even make $600 per week, why couldn’t she have just skipped those two words. Why? Does she have to prove to the world that she has more money than them? That she is some kind of wine expert and that if you ever get a spare $600 sitting around that you rush right out and buy Oprah’s favorite? What was her point?

Her average viewer and blog reader will never taste a 1982 Bordeaux. Oprah doesn’t care. She wants you to know she can and that you are a lesser person for not being like her. Honestly I don’t care if she sucks down 82 Bordeaux all night long. She makes enough and if I made what she makes I would probably stop buying the cheap stuff also. But, I also wouldn’t rub it into the faces of everyone who couldn’t.

At this point in her career, it just feels like Oprah is saying to the world that what she does is best, and you need to do what she does or else you are crap. The only time she ever admits a mistake is when the entire world calls her on it and then she doesn’t blame herself, but the person that misled her.

You read it for yourself. Maybe it is just me, but I can just see her dictating the words to an assistant who is writing the words with a quill and lamb’s blood ink on 200 year old parchment saying this is the word of Oprah. Then some poor schlep who makes $7 an hour types it in to the computer and Oprah’s missive gets sent to the world. The original is then sealed in an airless chamber awaiting the creation of the Oprah Bible.

(source)

• HBO Oprah Deal
• There Are No Droughts In Oprah’s World

Are Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray feuding? Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King, appears on the May 12 episode of “The Rachael Ray Show” and sets the record straight about rumors that the two chat hosts are at odds.

“I read something that you two were fighting. I know that’s not true,” King told Ray. Ray, who was largely catapulted to fame thanks to Winfrey, said, “Oprah and I hadn’t even spoken in months” when the latest round of rumors began circulating in late January.

Ray told King that when the news broke, “we had written each other sweet notes, it was her birthday and I sent her snack of the day and she sent me a note.”

And although Ray said that she’s gotten to the point of being able to “laugh it off” when she hears the talk of rumors about she and her husband, John Cusimano, are divorcing, Ray told King that the latest faux feud with Oprah was more difficult to swallow.

“The one with Oprah just broke my heart. It really did. It killed me, I’m like,‘No! We like each other!’”

(source)

• Oprah Winfrey to say goodbye to Dr. Oz
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The former Oprah employee accused of abusing children at her all-girls academy in South Africa has had her trial postponed until next July. Former dorm matron Tiny Virginia Mokgobo was arrested last October on 14 charges including assault, indecent assault and soliciting underage girls to perform indecent acts. She is accused of committing the crimes at Winfrey’s Henley-on-Klip Leadership Academy over a period of four months in 2007. Mokgobo appeared in Sebokeng magistrates court, south of Johannesburg today when Magistrate Thelma Simpson set a new trial date of July 29th. The decision follows Monday’s court hearings, when Simpson granted a motion by Mokgobo’s lawyer to delay the trial until a further date to allow him more time to consult with his client. The trial was originally due to begin this week.Mokgobo, who has previously expressed her innocence in the charges, is expected to formally enter her plea when she next appears in court in July. Winfrey co-founded the academy in 2006, and in late 2007, issued a heartfelt apology to the students who suffered at the hands of school officials.

(source)

• Pregnant Nicole Ritchie Ordered Back to Los Angeles for Court Hearing in the Morning
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