Posts Tagged ‘Oprah Winfrey’

Oprah Winfrey’s ‘secret code name’ – Mary

TV host Oprah Winfrey’s employees call her ‘Mary’, it has emerged.

The staff, on the set in Chicago, sticks to calling her “Ms. Winfrey”, but outside, she”s known by the code name “Mary, ” according to her biographer Kitty Kelley.

“That way, when they”re talking about her, and someone overhears the conversation, no one knows they”re referring to Oprah,” the New York Post quoted Kelly as telling Montecito Journal.

Kelley has also claimed in her book that Oprah had “lesbian affairs” in her life.

Also, she says that the TV queen once had a fling with former TV host John Tesh.

Bret Michaels opens to Oprah Winfrey about haemorrhage ordeal

Poison frontman Bret Michaels has revealed to Oprah Winfrey that he wore his signature bandana during his hospital stay.

Michaels, 47, who suffered a brain haemorrhage last month, told Winfrey in an interview that he was determined to keep his head wrapped in the bandana.

“I said, ‘If I’m going out, I want to go out rockin’,” the New York Daily News quoted him as telling the talk show host.

Of the subarachnoid haemorrhage, the singer said he knew right away something “was severely wrong”.

“It just exploded instantly – ran from my temple down to the back of my skull,” he added.

The singer, who’s also known for his “Rock of Love” reality show on VH1, has quickly bounced back from his brush with death, with a planned performance at the Hard Rock Live show in Biloxi, Miss., next week.

Livid Oprah Winfrey refuses to take DNA paternity test

American TV host Oprah Winfrey fumed when she was asked if she would take a DNA test to find out her biological father.

“I will not be taking a paternity test, ever,” Oprah told a reported outside Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan.

Am 84-year-old Navy veteran named North Robinson had claimed to the New York Post that he was Oprah’s biological father, reports News.com.au.

Robinson hails from Kosciusko, Missouri, a small rural town that Oprah left when she was six.

“I”ve never heard of him. I know who is claiming to be my real father,” Oprah said.

Robinson said that he did not want any share in Oprah’s

riches but just wants to meet his so-called daughter before he dies.

When Winfrey was asked what Robinson would get out of calling her his daughter, “Get out of my face”, replied Oprah before getting into an SUV.

Oprah considers Vernon Winfrey as her father. Vernon is Oprah’s mother Vernita Lee’s longtime boyfriend.

But the 56-year-old talk show queen has also insisted that Vernon is not her biological father.

Oprah Winfrey to star in her own reality show

Oprah Winfrey will be starring in her own reality show featuring the last season of her talk show.

Winfrey, 56, is saying goodbye to the talk show that has dominated the airwaves for 24 years, and every moment of the drama will be chronicled and shown on her network OWN when it launches on January 1, 2011.

“It”s a revealing new docu-series taking viewers for the first time ever behind the scenes of the ”Oprah Winfrey Show”,” Radar Online quoted the network as saying.

“Oprah will introduce you to the Harpo family, the people she works with side by side everyday,” the news release states.

The show called ”Behind The Scenes: The Oprah Show Final Season” was announced at The Discovery Networks upfront at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

This is the second show featuring Winfrey that will be on her new network.

Oprah”s Next Chapter was announced last week as a one-hour evening talk show in which she will interview guests from locations around the world.

Oprah Winfrey ”lied about poverty, sexual abuse”

Oprah Winfrey has repeatedly lied about her upbringing and made up stories about sexual abuse to boost her reputation, a new book claims.

The talk-show queen has always maintained that she grew up so poor in rural Mississippi that she never had any new dresses or dolls and could only keep cockroaches as pets.

However, a new biography has claimed that Winfrey was spoiled as a child.

In the biography Oprah, author Kitty Kelley has claimed that Winfrey”s tales have alienated her from much of her family.

“Where Oprah got that nonsense about growing up in filth and roaches I have no idea,” the New York Post quoted Winfrey”s cousin Katherine Carr Ester as saying in the book.

“I”ve confronted her and asked, ”why do you tell such lies?” … Oprah told me ”that”s what people want to hear – the truth is boring”,” Katherine added.

Vernon Winfrey, the talk show host”s adoptive father, reportedly told the author he felt “ashamed” about her lies.

“She may be admired by the world, but I know the truth; so does God and so does Oprah,” he said.

Winfrey’s lover walked out on her in middle of the night, says book

A tell-all book on talk show host Oprah Winfrey has revealed that her lover musician John Tesh had walked out on her in the middle of the night.

According to Kitty Kelley’s upcoming biography, Tesh, 57, took off in the middle of the night because his interracial relationship with Winfrey, 56, was too much to handle.

An exclusive excerpt from the biography claims the talk-show queen, who was barely out-of-her-teens, enjoyed a 1970s live-in romance with Tesh, and they both shared her Nashville apartment.

But the “social pressure” on an interracial couple in Tennessee at that time proved too much for Tesh to handle.

“He said one night he looked down and saw his white body next to her black body and couldn’t take it anymore,” the New York Daily News quoted another Tesh ex-paramour as telling Kelley.

“He walked out in the middle of the night. … He told me he later felt very guilty about it,” the person added.

Winfrey’s spokeswoman Angela DePaul said on April 10 that there were no comments from the talk show host on the highly anticipated book.

A phone call and an e-mail to Tesh’s spokespeople were not returned.

The book, ‘Oprah’, due out April 13, already ranks No. 19 on the Amazon.com best sellers list based on pre-orders.

Oprah Winfrey’s mum doesn’t have her phone number!

Oprah Winfrey hasn’t given her mother Vernita her phone number, according to a new unauthorized biography about the TV hostess.

Kitty Kelley, the author of the book, claims that all communication between the mother and the daughter takes place through the celebrity’s personal assistant.

“She buys 500 dollar hats, and she has a very good life financially, but she can’t reach Oprah. Oprah will not give her mother her telephone number,” RadarOnline.com quoted her as saying.

Meanwhile, a source said: “The assistant tells Oprah what her mother wants and then the assistant calls Vernita back and tells her what Oprah said.”

The insider further added that Oprah has people check on Vernita in her condo daily, including people with medical training.

Oprah Winfrey’s ”Oprah”s Next Chapter” coming to India

Oprah Winfrey’s new show, ”Oprah”s Next Chapter”, will take her to India, China and elsewhere, it has emerged.

According to a Oprah Winfrey Network spokesman, scheduling and details for the new prime-time series have not been finalized as yet, but the show likely will air two to three times a week and debut in late 2011, reports The Telegraph.

In the show, the talk show queen will be seen interview a range of people from celebrities to politicians to newsmakers in other countries.

It was in November that Oprah announced on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that she would end her popular daytime show which has been running for 25 years because it “feels right.”

Oprah Winfrey settles defamation suit out of court

Oprah Winfrey has made an out-of-court settlement with the former headmistress of her South African girls academy over a defamation suit.

Meeting privately, without lawyers, the two women came to agreement just days before the defamation case was to go on trail in the Philadelphia federal court next week.

However, a statement issued by attorneys for both sides did not spell out anything about a financial settlement while a spokesman for Winfrey’s production company maintained silence over any money changing hands.

According to the statement, Winfrey and Lerato Nomvuyo Mzamane “met woman to woman without their lawyers” to “resolve this dispute peacefully to their mutual satisfaction,” reports the New York Post.

Mzamane was seeking 250,000 dollars in damages, if reports are to be believed – but Winfrey’s lawyers say the ex-headmistress never specified any amount in court papers.

Mzamane, the ex-headmistress of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, had claimed Winfrey made defamatory comments against her after a sex-abuse scandal shook the school in 2007.

Oprah Winfrey sees herself in Gabourey Sidibe

Oprah Winfrey has revealed she sees a bit of herself in Gabourey Sidibe.

The chat show queen requested to present the “Precious” actress as a nominee at the recent Oscars, believing they had much in common.

Oprah went on to lavish praise on the 26-year-old, whom she described as “a true American Cinderella on the threshold of a brilliant new career.”

“This whole roller coaster that happens to you when you”re passionate about something – she wasn”t even thinking of being an actress; she just auditioned,” the New York Daily News quoted Oprah as telling People.com.

“And now here she is, being nominated alongside Meryl Streep, who is the greatest actress in the world, with Sean Penn reading her name. Only in America,” she added