James and the Giant Oprah

Do you all remember James Frey and his bestselling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces"?

In case you don't remember, here's the deal: James wrote this book. It was a bestseller. A couple years later it was selected by Oprah as one of her Book Club books. It was an even bigger best seller after that. Then a website called into question the authenticity of some of James' claims in the book. (James was a drug addict and had some pretty crazy stuff happen to him.) Oprah called into Larry King Live and defended James' book and said that the message that was contained in the book still resonated with readers and she was sticking behind it. People then got all ticked at Oprah for defending James and she was thrown under the bus.

Well.

Being that Ms. Winfrey doesn't much like being thrown under the bus, she called James on her show and spent an entire episode running James through the ringer. She had the help of columnists and journalists and other "experts" to publicly humiliate and verbally stone James. Over embellishing his memoir. A memoir that he supposedly remembered while high on drugs.

Here's my beef with Oprah.  First, I get that he lied. It was a stupid thing to do, especially when the book would have gotten published as a novel anyhow. Second, he wrote a good book. A bunch of people liked it and it helped a lot of addicts and their families in hopeless situations. Third, he was a drug addict! Did anyone really buy the book thinking that his recollections of his life while high as a kite were going to be 100% accurate? I sure didn't. Fourth, I seriously, seriously doubt that he is the first author to embellish the truth in a memoir. He's just the first to get caught. Fifth, when you are Oprah, it is an abuse of power to call someone to your show and attack them. With the help of experts. It's a book for crying out loud. He didn't kill anyone.

I absolutely think that she was just ticked because people, in turn, got mad at her. Poor, poor Oprah. She should just go home and cry into her bags of money. 

I'm bringing all this up because Oprah has dedicated TWO of her remaining shows to James Frey and what happened on her show five years ago. I watched yesterday and the second part is today. I sure hope that she apologizes to him for ambushing him on national television.

James said that he was told the show he was going to be on was about "truthiness" and not an entire show about his book/mistake. Oprah said she had no idea that her producers told him something like that to get him on the show.

Isn't that funny? They lied.