So here it is sweeties. Your play by play of Friday’s Oprah Interview with Tom Cruise. I should state for the record that in general, I tend to be sympathetic of Oprah. She’s not perfect and she has, I think, lousy taste in reading material, but I’ve always liked her and she reminds me of my stepmother, so I tend to cut her slack. However, she managed to break the bonds of my patience this time, although she had the help of Mr. Cruise.

From the start of the interview it was like some nightmarish Robin Leach “When Wealthy Folk Visit Each Other”. Both Katie and Tom were on hand to welcome The Oprah and guide her in to “the mudroom”, where Chez Cruise had provided Oprah with her own brass plated cubby with her own monogrammed slippers to wear around the house. “Let me know if these aren’t comfortable,” says Tom. “I can always get you something else,” which somehow brings to mind a sweatshop in back full of pre-clears busily sewing Oprah labels on the back of an infinite number of slippers. Katie gives her totally authentic sounding contractually obligated “I love you” before leaving to “take the kids into town”.

Others have commented on Oprah’s somewhat tacky obsession, possibly even mania, with money and expensive things. Girlfriend is always bringing up the Benjamins, and not necessarily to her credit. Anyone remember the time she interviewed Anderson Cooper, whose old money mom Gloria Vanderbilt was in the audience, and she started going on about how she’s always impressed by people who don’t have to work who do make something of themselves? You could just see that Cooper was so appalled and mortified. It was a car crash of old money and the nouveau riche.

I’m afraid this unseemly aspect of her personality was in full force. First, she walks in to the huge spotless multi-jillion dollar kitchen which is possibly bigger than the average person’s home and says “It’s just SO NORMAL and kitchen like!” and then proceeds to compliment the wood paneled refrigerator. Show of hands of everyone out there with their fridge paneled to match the rest of their solid oak kitchen. Later, when Tom is showing her all his scripts, which he’s had leather bound, she becomes almost apoplectic over how much he could get for these on eBay, which she insists on repeating multiple times. It was not attractive.

Possibly my favorite moment of “When Wealthy Folk Visit Each Other” comes after visiting the gym, the toy wing, the spotless kitchen and then the dining room, Oprah tells Tom why she loves his home, and this is a direct quote: “[it’s] so earthy and so simple…Oh! There’s the photo that Annie Liebowitz did [of TomKat & Suri for Vanity Fair]”. Uh, yeah. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands for how many of you have an Annie Liebowitz portrait of yourselves on your earthy, simple dining room wall.

Lots of other sites offer a play by play of “the Interview” that follows. Oprah does bring up the “tough” questions, though you get the sense that Tom had received a list of them weeks before hand. As I watched the interview, I realized something about the way Cruise handles interviews which I’ve never witnessed so clearly before. Cruise has two ways of answering questions. Well, technically three.

One is to recite a very carefully rehearsed anecdote which has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Hence we get him telling the (highly suspicious) sounding story of how he himself carefully waxed the floor so his socks would slide for that shot in Risky Business, and later the oh so cute story about how he dressed up like Santa but his genius daughter Suri saw through his sham immediately.

The second similar way he has of answering questions is to repeat a carefully rehearsed sound bite. Thus he repeatedly said in answer to the Oprah Q&A about Brooke Shields “It came out wrong” and “It should be up to the parents”. Since we’re talking about Tom accusing Brooke of ruining her career by taking anti-depressants, and no one said a darn thing about giving drugs to kids, it sounded really weird.

The third way he had of answering questions is to simply repeat the question he’s just been asked in the form of a statement. “Were you surprised?” “Oh…yeah…I was totally…you know…surprised….absolutely surprised.” “Were you prepared [for the crazy fame that followed Risky Business]? I mean, how could you be?” “Oh, no, no, of course not….how could anyone be…prepared” God, I wanted to slap him myself through the TV, and though I haven’t been giving Oprah credit for much in this dog and pony show, I do give her credit for not smacking him.

He declined to say anything substantive about Scientology except “I think it’s best for people to read about it for themselves,” and then quickly reassured the world that respect for other religions is an absolute tenant of faith for Scientology, and OF COURSE he believes in God. I was particularly interested in how he handled Oprah’s questions about whether he was preventing Nicole from having access to the children. He described their relationship as “good, easy”, and “we share custody, that’s what we do.” Then, in case we didn’t get that, he said again that they “share custody, whenever”. So, whenever what? Whenever Nicole makes up her mind to move back to LA and stops behaving like a Suppressive Person?

Honestly, it’s hard to tell sometimes if Cruise is a lousy liar or just a lousy interview. Perhaps it’s the same difference. I have no doubt that he’ll be totally controlled and perfect for Monday’s chapter in front of a live audience, especially since the whole point of the show is to laud him for a movie which most people barely remember from twenty five years ago. Yay! Let’s pretend we all care! Yay!

I don’t think I can bear to watch it. Best of luck to you if you manage!!

[Above is a guest post from KT at Populucious, please visit often, and thx KT]

Tom Cruise rarely does anything spontaneous. Even his ’seemingly-spontaneous’ couch calisthenics on Oprah’s show in 2005 was deemed to be premeditated. All this over-the-top exuberance for finding his “true love” (third time’s the charm, right?) in actress Katie Holmes after only a few weeks of knowing each other, was surely to help make the transition that much more believable. Sadly, contrived spontaneity rarely goes over well.

In the years following this epic interview, Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise’s names have become inextricably linked to one another, and created as they say, an elephant in the room. Oprah for her part, was seen as complicit in giving Cruise a forum to really behave in a disingenuous way. She sat back and while he let the crazy out, all the while secretly wondering “WTF?” is going on. Oprah received zero credibility for her Tom Cruise interview, and while she’s still insanely popular, she knows the whole TC interview hangs over her like a dark cloud.

But what about Tom Cruise? What does he have to gain by going back to Oprah’s couch? He too is dogged with the knowledge he let his inner Scientology-induced weirdo out for all the world to gape upon. Surely he’d be better off letting this connection die a excruciatingly slow death. Or perhaps not.

With all the speculation as to what Oprah will be asking Tom, and what Tom will be shilling this time, why not go to the authority on Tom Cruise, the man who spent two years studying, dissecting and analyzing the world’s most famous, and now infamous actor, NYTimes bestselling biographer Andrew Morton.

I asked Mr. Morton for his thoughts on this upcoming interview and he seemed pretty interested in the process that went into bringing these two forces together once more, considering how poorly it went last time. From Morton:

But wait, there’s more…

MSBNC’s Scoop is reporting some very interesting news on the Tom “I molest couches” Cruise front:

But wait, there’s more…

Uh Oh. I always knew there was a cult in Oprah waiting to come out. In all fairness, there is likely really wonderful spiritual awakening which can be found through this “openness.” So long as people enter in it with an open mind and do their own thinking.

Oprah is just a woman, not a Divine being. As long as she doesn’t start charging, then following Oprah is ok, but she should be watched like any iconic personality. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate any religion, Christian or otherwise. I advocate free will and the right to choose. I would prefer the ending of this video to be omitted.

Thanks to Ash for the link

Celebrities have the power to influence our perceptions of almost anything.

A perfect example of this is super-celeb, Oprah Winfrey and her book club. One mention from Oprah and you are an instant best-seller. Of course this can backfire, as in the case of James Frey, author of “A Million Little Pieces” which was stated to be the riveting tale of a drug-addict turned criminal, who somehow managed to turn his life around. That was, until it turned out most of what he wrote was an exaggeration, or complete fabrication.

Once public opinion turned on Oprah, Oprah turned on James Frey. You don’t hear much from James anymore do we?

In 2005, we have another Oprah orchestrated event, when she invited the immensely popular actor, Tom Cruise, on her show and much to the amazement of the world, Tom’s appearance on that now infamous episode created a new term to define a person who has gone mental, off-the-deep-end, over-board, batsh*t crazy — and now, thanks be to Tom — we have “couch-jumping.”

But wait, there’s more…

The First Church Of Our Lady Of The Massive Head is going to get its own network, starting in 2009.  I can hear the flocking Oprahloonies singing and genuflecting in rapturous praise from here:

Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications said on Tuesday that they would jointly create OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable television channel to make its debut in 2009 on what is now the Discovery Health Channel. Discovery Health is available in more than 70 million homes.

The new channel will not initially carry “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the top-rated syndicated daytime talk show featuring Ms. Winfrey as host. But Ms. Winfrey said that she had the option to end that show in 2010 or 2011 and could move the talk show to the new channel then.

“Eventually that will happen, we hope,” Ms. Winfrey said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

Oh, trust me, I hope that too.  Maybe she’ll get her own satellite package and then I can opt out of having her show on my television at all.  Not that I ever watch her televised cultfest, because I’m afraid whatever laser beams originate from the broadcast will shoot into my home and I’ll become a brain-dead Oprahloonie too, unable to do anything except what The Great Massive-Headed One orders me to do.

She is excited about this new venture, mainly because she’ll have control over Every. Little. Thing, unlike when she was involved with Oxygen, where she had to, gasp, be responsible to somebody other than herself:

Asked about the difference between Oxygen, which was sold to NBC in October for $925 million, and the latest venture, Ms. Winfrey said Oxygen “did not reflect my voice.” That assertion is subject to interpretation, however; Ms. Winfrey was host of a 12-part series called “Oprah Goes Online” on Oxygen. The show was sort of a primer on the Internet. She also was frequently referred to as a co-founder of the channel in news reports at the time.

“I was not a participant in the development of the channel,” she said. “That’s why after a couple of board meetings I took myself off the board.”

With the Oprah Winfrey Network, “I will have editorial control,” she said. “I have a vision for what we want to accomplish with this network.”

Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn.  That is Oprah-ese for she wants every man, woman, and child within satellite reach to not be able to walk, talk, breathe, eat, sleep, buy books, raise children, wipe their behinds, or have sex unless it is done according to her “voice”.  Let’s face it, there are people out there who do everything according to the First Book Of Oprah, Chapter One, Verse One:  “Thou shalt have no other thoughts other than mine.”

Oh, and if it couldn’t possibly get any better, guess what?  It does!

In addition to continuing her syndicated talk show, Ms. Winfrey said she would also continue to produce programming for other outlets. A new reality show, “Oprah’s Big Give,” is scheduled to begin on ABC in March.

Gag gag gag.  I wish I hadn’t eaten my supper before reading this article.  Why does she feel the need to document and chronicle every so-called charitable thing she does with cameras?  So she can pull out the footage to prove just what a wonderful and generous person she is?  I’ll bet the people who have been recipients of her so-called “charity” beg to differ, especially those who have been on her show.  She needs to shut up and take notes from Johnny Depp.

And oh the humanity…the Discovery Channel?  Home of the almighty fine and deliciously yummy Mike Rowe?  Perish the thought!  A dirty job, indeed!

Yes, it’s that time of year again, the time when the overhyped crap that the average person lived just fine without until Oprah pointed out how empty their lives are without them is put on display at the Oprah show.  Once again, Oprah has unveiled her list of her Favorite Things to her sheep blind followers mindless masses viewing audience, who will now rush out to buy everything that has Oprah’s magic touch on it, and guess what’s at the top of her list?

Oprah’s giving the most expensive gift in Oprah’s Favorite Things history to her loyal viewers in Macon—LG HDTV Refrigerator LSC27991. It’s a top-of-the-line, high-tech entertainment center with a LCD TV, DVD hookup, radio and slideshow option to display your favorite digital photos.

With the press of a button, you can also access your five-day weather forecast and view more than 100 built-in recipes. LG has even volunteered to remove our lucky audience members’ old fridges and either recycle them or give them to families in need. “LG has literally thought of everything!” Oprah says.

Okay, WOAH.  Back up the truck.

This, my friends, is a refrigerator.  A fridge.  You keep your milk and eggs and lettuce and leftover Thanksgiving turkey in it.  It keeps your pop cold.  The freezer part keeps your ice cream from being runny.  It’s a REFRIGERATOR.  Um…HELLO?

And do you know what this little electronic marvel will set you back?  About $3800.

Who would pay almost $4000 USD for a fridge?  I mean, SERIOUSLY.  The advances in fridge technology are great…they have technology that keeps your lettuce crispier and your pop colder and your eggs more perfecter than ever before.  And that’s great…because that is what a FRIDGE is SUPPOSED to do.

But come on.  Are we really so lazy that we can’t walk into the other room to view the weather report on the TV?  Do we have to have a video slideshow in the kitchen?  Must we be entertained constantly with a DVD player, even when we’re cooking?  Oh wait…I forgot, Oprah doesn’t cook, she has minions to do that for her.  My bad.

And how nice that LG is removing the old fridges from the audience’s homes and donating them to “families in need.”  Sorry, you aren’t good enough for a $4000 fridge, but you can have this old icebox.  And if you want to know the weather, you’ll have to walk outside.  Just a little something to remember…if it’s cold, that means it’s either wintertime or Hell froze over because Oprah did something without thinking of ratings and the bottom dollar first.

Talk-show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey was put in an incredibly awkward and humbling position when she was forced to apologize to parents and student at her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa this past week. Abuse allegations surfaced at the school, including sexual abuse when it was revealed a “dorm parent” on staff at the academy fondled a student, choked a student and cursed and screamed at students. Both the principal and the “matron” have been placed on leave pending further investigations. Here’s more from an article in the NYD News:

Oprah canceled appointments and flew to South Africa twice in the past few weeks after allegations that one of the matrons fondled a girl and that other pupils had been physically abused.

One pupil has said a matron grabbed her by the throat and threw her against a wall. Girls have also said the “dorm parent” swore and screamed at them, assaulted them and sexually fondled at least one girl. The alleged incidents came to light when one of the pupils ran away from the school because the reported abuse had become intolerable.

South African police and the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offenses Unit are now investigating.

Oprah, who has spoken openly about being abused as a child, gave the girls her personal telephone number, her e-mail address and her postal address so that they could contact her around the clock.

I am NOT an Oprah Winfrey fan. While she’s undoubtedly talented, powerful and wears many hats - she also comes across as very arrogant, self-serving and can be deceptively manipulative. To be perfectly honest, Oprah seems like a major control freak.

But, with all that being said, I have genuine sympathy for Oprah having to deal with these kinds of issues. There is no doubt she feels terrible that these young women were exposed to someone who clearly was ill-suited to be working with children. The academy isn’t even a year old (it opened in January 2007) and Oprah used her own vast wealth and resources to build the facility. Clearly Ms. Winfrey wanted to give these young women an opportunity to excel and succeed in a country with a very negative history of oppression toward blacks and certainly women in general.

Africa is a continent which can use all the charitable works the Western world has to offer, but this kind of negative attention may make some who wish to be philanthropic think twice. Oprah does NOT deserve to have her efforts to do good turn into some kind of embarrassing backlash, yet, that’s what has happened:

A tearful Oprah Winfrey begged for forgiveness Sunday as she met the parents of students at her all-girls academy, which is reeling from lurid allegations of sexual abuse.

“I’ve disappointed you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” the talk show queen told families in an emergency meeting at the South African school in Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg.

By lending her name to the school, the onus is on Winfrey to make sure proper screening and employment practices are being used when hiring staff for the school. Obviously a bad apple slipped through. This type of oversight has happened to Oprah before. Like here and most recently here.

Rest assured though, there will be severe repercussions for those who humiliate the Oprah. Remember James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces? No?

Exactly.

I don’t watch Oprah, but here’s a story I could not pass up.

I guess Jessica Seinfeld, wife of cereal-loving Jerry Seinfeld, was on Oprah’s chatfest to promote her new cookbook.  A week later, it is a best-seller.  Jessica is insanely grateful, so she gifts Oprah with a little thank-you present.

Fast forward to yesterday.  Jerry was on the show to promote his new movie, Bee Movie, and Oprah showed just what his wife had sent as a thanks-for-promoting-my-cookbook-on-your-show gift:

Jessica sent Oprah 21 pairs of shoes. From the shot that goes across the screen, the majority were Christian Louboutin kicks, which retail for $800-$1200 a pair. Just a $16,000-$20,000 thank you, from one multi-millionaire couple to their billionaire friend.

Like Oprah needs more shoes.  She has more shoes than she’ll ever wear.  She has more shoes than Chicago will ever wear.  And in the unlikely event that she should need new shoes, she has enough lettuce to go out and get her own.  How much you wanna bet those shoes will never even get worn?

Do you know how much good that $16,000-$20,000 could have done at a homeless shelter, a VA hospital, a home for abused women and children, a drug rehab treatment center, a no-kill shelter for pets?  There are children going without coats this winter in Chicago, do you know how many winter coats that sort of bacon can buy?  Do you know how many care packages that could have sent to our troops in Iraq and around the world?

Forget buying shoes for Oprah…how about buying shoes for the homeless, for the elderly in nursing homes, for children who don’t have any?  I’m sure Chicago is full of people who could use new shoes a lot more than Oprah.  Why not make a donation to a charity in Oprah’s name?  Jessica could have done a lot more good with her cheddar than this empty-headed gesture.

What a waste.  I’ve never liked Oprah and her self-righteous, “I’m the only one who knows how to save the world and you should all listen to me” attitude, anyway, and her friends seem to be as out of touch as she is.  We should all read a book because Oprah endorsed it?  Please.  I can pick out my own books, and I have better taste in them than Oprah.  This shoe thing just shows yet again that Oprah and her out-of-touch-with-reality celebrity friends are not worth my time to sit and watch.

Besides….by writing this cookbook, doesn’t Jessica realize that her secret is blown, and her kids will never eat her meatloaf or scrambled eggs again?

(and yeah…I know I just gave them all more publicity, which is what I suspect Jessica was really buying with those shoes, but I had to say it…I wonder if all the money she made off the sale of those cookbooks was worth it)

All the world was a buzz yesterday as word spread that Oprah’s father, Vernon Winfrey was working on a book about his relationship with his famous daughter, talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey. What was so surprising about this story was that Oprah was completely unaware a book was being written, which was said to have the working title of “Things Unspoken.”

Now, there seems to be either a change of heart, or perhaps some intervening words on the part of Team Oprah. According to an exclusive interview with TV Guide Magazine, Vernon Winfrey is quoted on the matter:

“There is no book. We might think about it later on.”

Asked whether he would be working with his famous daughter on a book, Vernon said:

“Well, I don’t know. We have to decide.”

And more to the point, had he spoken to Oprah about the book and did she talk him out of the idea?

“No,” Vernon insists. “It’s just on hold right now, OK?”

Oh, I am SO NOT buying that last one. There’s two things I know about in life. Don’t cross the mafia and don’t cross Oprah. Doing either will get you the same result: cement shoes!!! Hey, I ain’t trying to start any blasphemous rumors, I’m just saying is all. I bet Vernon slept with one eye open last night. It’ll be several moons before that old man let’s his guard down.

Oprah is scarier than al Qaeda.