Oprah Apologizes For Scolding Author James Frey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey apologized to author James Frey for disgracing him on her TV show amid revelations he had fabricated parts of his memoir, her spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Winfrey’s apology was first seen on the Web site of Vanity Fair. James was saying he felt “grateful” for Winfrey’s gesture. The two have a disruptive history.
Winfrey had been one of Frey’s most vocal supporters, naming his 2003 drugs-and-alcohol incident “A Million Little Pieces” one of her “book club” choices in 2005 and making it to bestseller status.
The next year, after it was revealed Frey had made up some details in the supposedly non-fiction memoir and written that he once spent three months behind bars when it was only just a few hours, Winfrey criticized him harshly as a guest on her show.
“It is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped,” Winfrey said on the 2006 show.
She went on and accused the author of betraying his fans. Her scolding him was among the most public embarrassments for the author. He apologized for “lying.” A month after the broadcast his publisher, Riverhead Books, dropped him.
But Winfrey and Frey appeared to have accommodate.
Frey said that Winfrey called him last fall to tell him “I felt I owe you an apology,” and she explained that her lambasting of him sprang from her sense of feeling betrayed, according to the Vanity Fair report.
“It was a nice surprise to hear from her, and I really appreciated the call and the sentiment,” Frey told Vanity Fair.
Angela DePaul, a spokeswoman for Winfrey, made it clear that Winfrey had called to apologize.
There are no immediate plans to have Frey on the show for another episode, because the program has stopped filming new episodes for the season.
