By, JEREMY OLSHAN
Oprah Winfrey -- who built a billion-dollar empire persuading everyone from celebs to average Joes to reveal the truth about themselves -- is a big phony when it comes to her own past, an explosive new book charges.
Winfrey's relationship with longtime "love" Stedman Graham, her reputed dirt-poor upbringing in rural Mississippi, her rumored lesbian crushes on women such as Diane Sawyer -- all are stories she has manipulated for decades in the name of sensational ratings, according to writer Kitty Kelley's latest unauthorized biography "Oprah."
The much-anticipated book details how:
* Winfrey concocted stories about sexual abuse she suffered as a child -- and grossly exaggerated the poverty she was brought up in.
* She went to great lengths to conceal her "lesbian affairs" -- including hefty payoffs -- and publicly attached herself to Graham to appear more normal to her audience of housewives.
* She lavished romantic gifts -- including a diamond toe ring -- on ABC talking head Diane Sawyer.
* Winfrey sold her body to earn extra money and has even described herself as a teen "prostitute."
* She doesn't know the true identity of her biological father.
* Her relationship with her own mother is so cold that Winfrey won't even let the older woman have her phone number.
Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Miss., in 1954, and, the way she likes to tell it, she was so impoverished that she never had any new dresses or dolls and had to adopt two cockroaches as pets, naming them Melinda and Sandy.
But her family says that's nonsense.
She may not have been well off, but Oprah was relatively "spoiled" as a little girl, her cousin said.
"Where Oprah got that nonsense about growing up in filth and roaches I have no idea," said the relative, Katherine Carr Esters. "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.' "
A friend of Esters added that the manipulation of her past is a key to her success.
"Every move is calculated to further her brand and lift her image, which is why she does good works," Jewette Battles said.
As a teen, Winfrey was a wild child, promiscuous to the point of prostitution, her relatives said.
The future star would steal from her mother's purse, pawn her jewelry and even turn tricks. She was eventually sent to live in Nashville with Vernon Winfrey, who was her mother's former lover and who is listed on her birth certificate as her father. He has been described as the domineering disciplinarian who set her straight.
0 comments:
Post a Comment