Frey (no relation) on Frey and a somewhat "creepy" Oprah

Oprah's revenge

The daytime queen didn't just expose the lies in James Frey's "memoir." She publicly shamed him -- and it was a little creepy.

By Hillary Frey

Jan. 27, 2006 | Today, Oprah Winfrey found herself in a position she has never been in before: having to apologize to her audience. "I regret that phone call," she said during a live taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in Chicago. She was referring to her Jan. 11 phone-in to Larry King, during which the daytime queen expressed support for Oprah's Book Club author James Frey, who was under the initial round of fire for having fabricated parts of his mega-selling memoir "A Million Little Pieces." "I left the impression that the truth does not matter," she said. "To everyone who has challenged me about this book -- you are absolutely right."

Good for Oprah, right? Admitting being wrong, as Oprah has no doubt counseled guests on her show many times, isn't an easy thing to do, especially in front of millions of people. Yet, in the wake of this week's New York Times reports casting even wider doubts on the veracity of Frey's memoir, she didn't have much of a choice. Besides the Smoking Gun's initial investigation showing that Frey (to whom I am not related) lied about time he spent in jail and various run-ins with the law, some employees at the rehab center Frey attended have come forward to dispute his portrait of life there. No doubt her many, many followers (and admirers like myself) have been waiting for Oprah to finally pronounce James Frey a fraud, and to distance herself both from the flimsy book that she made into a phenomenon, and from the lying man she made into a hero.

Yet, even for those of us who have wanted to see Frey go down in flames for his lies, today's "Oprah" was unnerving . . .

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