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Magical Oprah Endorsement Secrets Revealed
Oprah is the most important person in the world, singlehandedly driving American book-buying and butt cream choices. Ad Age has a monster article today about "How to Get Your Brand on 'Oprah,'" which is the most important task facing American marketers everywhere at any given time. And after thousands of words, the magazine nails the secret to landing your widget in this "pinnacle of product publicity": get Oprah to like you, or something! More »
We Hope They Enjoy 'The Last Samurai'
Oprah just gave her audience box sets featuring "every movie Tom Cruise has starred in since Risky Business." Why—why—has Losin' It! been erased from history?
tom cruise
The Most Important Interview of Our Time
Tom Cruise on family life: "I don't know, normal, how to make it. ... I just try to create life, for them." Oprah looks SCARED of him. NOW HE'S CRYING ABOUT HOW HE ALWAYS DOES THE BEST HE CAN. Update: He just kidnapped Oprah on his snowmobile. They road off into the woods, Miller's Crossing-style. "This is what happened with Katie!" she cried.
kind of magic
David Blaine Fails To Drown Himself On Oprah
Droopy-eyed magician David Blaine, a man who sounds high at all times, went on Oprah's show today to try to break the world record for holding one's breath underwater. Not to give away the ending, but he did it! Seventeen minutes. Perhaps his success will inspire him to go freeze himself in a block of ice, or lock himself away in a box, or some other activity that will take him out of the public eye. The actual clip of the breath-holding, as you might imagine, is not very thrilling to watch. So instead, after the jump we've put a clip of his video blog leading up to the stunt, in which he explains his motivation while sounding high. And another clip of that trick where he ties his shoes with no hands, which is way cooler than holding your breath any day. More »
authors
Just Answer The Fucking Question, Jonathan Franzen
Here's a video clip in which the interviewer had two very simple and specific question for Corrections author Jonathan Franzen, who famously got himself disinvited from the Oprah Book Club for being too ungrateful: Do you regret your run-in with Oprah? And would you be part of the book club if you could do it over again? To these simple questions, Franzen stares at the floor and says things like "What does regret mean?" and then remarks on the magnitude of dividing the world's opinion in two. Maybe this is the nuance necessary to be a literary titan; check out this quote of his at the time of the dispute: "To find myself being in the position of giving offense to someone who's a hero — not a hero of mine per se, but a hero in general — I feel bad in a public-spirited way." No, that's just mealy-mouthed. Yes or no question, Jonathan Franzen. The full clip, after the jump. More »
oprah
Oprah Followers Drape Themselves In Rags Of Their Idol
Oprah is scary. There's no denying it. She essentially runs the foremost happy cult in America, surpassing even Martha Stewart at her pre-prison height of popularity. So it's not odd, we guess, that her devotees want to buy all types of tchotchkes with her menacing "O" logo stamped on them like a gang sign for suburban women. But is it really necessary to orgasmically revel in the sweat-stained experience of wearing her old clothes? More »
exes
Dumping James Frey
James Frey is like my ex-boyfriend of the literary world. Yeah, sure, I enjoyed A Million Little Pieces as a memoir, but after I found out he'd lied to me about the whole dental surgery without Novocaine thing, I wanted him gone. I didn't want him dead, but he was dead to me. He keeps on calling me with new works of fiction, and it's like, enough already. We're over. I was willing to look past the fact that A Million Little Pieces was overwritten and self-aggrandizing when it was a memoir, but as fiction, he could have at least written himself into a likable character. And now he has a blog, which would normally be totally annoying, but just confirms why I dumped him in the first place. More »
oprah
The Color Bronze
American sculptor Daniel Edwards has unveiled his latest work: a bronzed sarcophagus featuring a nude, large-breasted woman called "The Oprah Sarcophagus." Some would say they can't see the resemblance, but look how regal! Look how noble! We would not be surprised if Oprah secretly commissioned it herself. After all, she has a big photo of her Beloved scars in the lobby of her office. Plus, Stedman needs something to look at when she's off cavorting with Gayle. [Daily Mail}
media
Oprah Moves Towards Total World Domination
Oprah Winfrey, who some of you might know as both a popular talk-show host as well as the name behind Hearst's O, the Oprah Magazine and O At Home, is starting a cable channel. It's called "OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network," with Discovery Communications. Is she going to do it right this time? More »
gossip roundup
No One Will Ever Publish A Book About Oprah, Duh
Oprah has selected British author Ken Follett's cathedral-building and hott medieval sex themed 1989 bestseller 'The Pillars Of The Earth' as her next book club pick! Guess she likes the word "cunny" too. [Galleycat]
setting the record straight
Everything You Think You Know About Jessica Seinfeld Is Pretty Much True
"There are three things people think they know about Jessica Seinfeld, the semipublic wife of the popular comedian," writes Allen Salkin, who, though he wrote an entire book about the fake holiday Festivus, boasts no "personal or professional relationship" with the Seinfelds. The three things are: A) she met Jerry at a gym shortly after marrying a different rich dude, B) she was accused of plagiarism, and C) she thanked Oprah for a recent appearance with 21 pairs of designer shoes. In order to dispel these 'myths,' Jessica has now "grudgingly" consented to be interviewed. She starts by slamming "journalists." "I understand that there's nothing more satisfying to a journalist than to take someone like me who appears to have had an easy life and appears to have now hit the jackpot," she tells Salkin. Actually! There's one thing that's more satisfying: Watching someone who's trying desperately to revamp her image totally dig herself a deeper hole. More »
gossip roundup
Britney Spears Is Straight Up About Her Hit And Run
cheap deals
NBC Makes Oprah, Paul Allen Very Slightly Richer
NBC Universal announced today that it has bought Oxygen Media, that home for the has-been (see: "Tori & Dean," "Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty," and "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,") for the bargain basement price of $925 million. The deal for the seven-year-old Lifetime-rival network will ensure that the founders of Oxygen will finally be able to feed their children and rest easy at night, knowing their financial worries are behind them. You know: Oxygen co-founder? Oprah Winfrey. Oxygen investor? Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. We're sure they're totally pissed that they didn't get to pocket that $3 billion "BET money" they were hoping for. Because now how will they buy more megayachts and/or Maui?
shame is the new fame
Fuck The Bullshit, It's Time To Throw James Frey Down
"James Frey is a liar. His best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, is a fraud. It is a seamless mass of falsehoods, told deliberately, for the purpose of making money." Back when Tom Scocca wrote those words in the Observer last January, it was nearly impossible to imagine the disgraced memoirist would ever sell another book to a major U.S. publisher. Sure, he'd have little tossed-off pieces in magazines every once in a while, or maybe he'd go back to writing screenplays. Hollywood doesn't care about this kind of thing! But the idea that Frey would sell what amounts to his third novel, for more than a million dollars, to Harper's Jonathan Burnham, seemed as unlikely as, say, Ron Goldman's family pimping a book by O.J. Simpson. And then it happened. A lot of things happen that shouldn't. More »
gawker book club
Steve Almond To Oprah: "I Don't Give A Shit How Many Books You Sell"
Former journalist and current fiction writer Steve Almond writes a letter to Oprah in his new book, (Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions, which was published this week. It's called "How This Book Became an Official Oprah Book Club™ Pick," and it's one of those "Kidding! Haha. Ok, not kidding! Okay, kidding!" type of jokes. It is pretty bonkers. More »
From the mailbag: "Just as the heavy wooden doors opened today at FENDI for business, there was OPRAH, zooming in, entourage and body guards in-tow, as she declared she had misplaced her FENDI sunglasses (the super fab dark ones with all of the logo F's on the sides) and she NEEDED to replace them immediately! 'We only have this one last pair,' says the Italian saleswoman, 'I'm sorry there are no others in the back.' 'PERFECT,' says Miss O, and off she lopes wearing them out of the store. (Entourage member then stays behind to pay....)"
