the oprah winfrey show (32 posts)

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Before everyone and his mother had a daytime talk show, there was Oprah Winfrey.

And the news that in less than two years there won't be an Oprah Winfrey Show as we know it has prompted an outpouring of well wishes and appreciations from those whose stars have shined a little brighter thanks to Oprah's warm glow.

"I am going to enjoy every episode between now and 2011," offered Food Network star turned syndicated talk-show host Rachael Ray, who waited until Oprah had discussed the matter "one-on-one" with her audience today to comment.

"Oprah opened the door for me to move into daytime television and I can't thank her enough. I look forward to seeing what she does next…there will only ever be one Oprah!"

Hell, even Dr. Phil McGraw knows who first put him on the map.

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Oprah Winfrey says it's the "exact right time" to say goodbye.

In a Very Special live episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show airing today, Winfrey confirmed plans to pull the plug on her namesake program on Sept. 9, 2011.

"I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye," a tearful Winfrey told her studio audience.

"Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit. It's the perfect number—the exact right time. So I hope that you will take this 18-month ride with me right through to the final show."

Her decision, she said, came after "prayer and careful thought."

So farewell to the couch-jumping, car-giving, celeb-confessing, book clubbing, weight-monitoring, housewife-inspiring hijinks that earned her a bucketload of Emmys and loyal audience of some 42 million viewers each week.

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With the news that Oprah Winfrey is signing off after... Wait, what? She's not pulling the plug on The Oprah Winfrey Show until 2011? Well, shoot, what are we all scrambling around for?!

Still, just thinking about Winfrey's eventual exit after what will be 25 years in syndication has put us in a nostalgic mood, and we've compiled nine of the most memorable Oprah moments, using criteria such as star wattage, emotional heaviness, cultural impact, etc.

Of course, we've probably forgotten your favorite, so be sure to remind us in the comments section. A lot of stuff has happened on Oprah's couch over the last two and a half decades.

Or, in some cases, several inches above her couch...

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ABC; ABC/Donna Svennevik

How dare Levi Johnston say Sarah Palin never went to a hockey game!

As Oprah Winfrey ticked off a list of unflattering things that Johnston has said about the Palin family since splitting up with baby mama Bristol, it appeared to be the attack on her hockey-mom status that stuck with the former governor of Alaska.

"So many of the inconsistencies...That's Levi's gig right now. And I really don't want to comment on that because he's on a road that's not a healthy place to be. He's a teenager."

When Winfrey first mentioned the 19-year-old father of Palin's grandson, Tripp, the Going Rogue: An American Life author kinda grimmaced, but pressed on despite her distaste for "some of the things he's doing."

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Steve Granitz/Getty Images; AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Just as he has with so many other women, Robert Pattinson has become a full-fleged citizen of Stephenie Meyer's fantasy world.

The usually press-shy author who gave life to Bella, Edward, Jacob and a billion-dollar media phenomenon told Oprah Winfrey today that R.Pattz and his unique and "significantly featured" face brought her visions of Edward to life.

"I knew that the problem was going to be Edward, because he's the perfect vampire," Meyer said in what will be her only formal interview before New Moon hits theaters Nov. 20. "How do you cast that from your pool of human actors?"

But Pattinson "doesn't look like everybody else," she said. "There's something unusual. There are moments where he looks exactly like he did in my head." 

As for the role of Bella, "there's plenty of people who look like the girl next door. We were really lucky with Kristen Stewart, who is a phenomenal actress."

And the rest is history.

History wrought by a dream that Meyer, a first-time author who had never tried to publish anything, just happened to have.

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Oprah Winfrey is no Katie Couric. Which, for Sarah Palin, has got to be a blessing.

The former vice presidential candidate has completed her much-hyped interview with the openly Obama-favoring queen of daytime and although the highly anticipated summit won't air until Monday, we got a taste of their sit-down today.

And based on the clips and transcripts, it looks like Winfrey managed to get in the questions enquiring minds want to know without Palin pulling off her microphone and sitting silently in protest.

Like that infamous, potentially campaign-costing Couric interview. Palin admits it wasn't her proudest moment, but didn't take the bait when asked if she regarded it as game-changer.

"I did not. And neither did the campaign. In fact, that is why segment 2 and 3 and 4 and maybe 5 were scheduled. The campaign said, 'Right on. Good. You're showing your independence. This is what American needs to see and it was a good interview.'

"And of course I'm thinking, 'If you thought that was a good interview, I don't know what a bad interview is,' because it was a bad interview."

Oprah, of course, knows from good interviews and has no trouble going there. Which means Levi Johnston's ears are burning.

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Another heartrending get for Oprah Winfrey.

Charla Nash, whose face was destroyed by her boss' pet chimpanzee in February, revealed the extent of her injuries for the first time during an interview that aired Wednesday on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"I don't remember anything," Nash said, speaking on what was her 56th birthday, of the attack that left her severely disfigured.

"I told the doctor that I don't want to remember because I can't imagine what it was like. If I do start remembering, getting flashbacks, they have medicine to help me with that...I want to get healthy. I don't want to wake up with nightmares."

(Video from the interview is after the jump. Please be advised that it contains graphic and disturbing images.)

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Mackenzie Phillips' admission that her father, '60s rock icon John Phillips, raped her when she was 19 and that the incestuous relationship did not stop there has brought a variety of responses from her extended family.

The One Day at a Time star read excerpts from her memoir, High on Arrival, on the Oprah Winfrey Show today, where she also talked about the drug problems and depression that have plagued her for most of her life.

Phillips' says that she finally put a stop to the sex 10 years after it started when she became pregnant and, suspecting that John could be the dad, she had an abortion.

"It was one of those moments where you're either going to live or die," she told Oprah. "I don't mean death. I mean, wake up dead. Dead to feeling. Dead to reality."

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Now this is a horrifying revelation.

Mackenzie Phillips, the trouble-plagued eldest daughter of the late Mamas & the Papas frontman John Phillips, says in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, airing tomorrow, that she was a victim of rape at the hands of her famous father.

Phillips says in her new memoir, High on Arrival (which she discussed with the daytime queen), that she confronted John, who died in March 2001, about their sordid past, saying, "We have to talk about when you raped me."

To which John replied, according to his daughter, "You mean when we made love?"

Ugh.

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Not talking crack would've been wack.

Unlike certain other artists who shall remain nameless, Whitney Houston has what you would call room awareness. As a result, the comeback kid woman shared exactly what people wanted to hear on the first of her two-day Greatest. Interview. Ever. with Oprah Winfrey, talking drugs, Bobb-ay, and more.

The interview started—as, seemingly, did Houston's troubles—with Bobby Brown.

"He was my drug," she said. "I didn't do anything without him. I wasn't getting high by myself. It was me and him together. We were partners."

On at least one occasion, physically abusive partners.

While Houston herself stopped short of categorizing her husband as an abuser, she said that he did at times cross the line of physical contact.

Houston said Brown "slapped me once but he got hit on the head three times by me." Another time, she said, he "spit on me, in my face."

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