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Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, Part two

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Speaker 1: of the Oprah Winfrey series, being filmed once again from Sudny,

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Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Nevada, where I am exhausted and deeply hungover,

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Speaker 1: unlike my guests today, who are both health nuts and

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Speaker 1: extremely responsible people, the wonderful Bridget Todd and the also

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Speaker 1: wonderful Andrew t Sorry for giving me the also there, Andrew,

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Speaker 1: but one of you had to get it. I can't

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Speaker 1: remember another nice word, just one.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, today I was I thought you were gonna

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Speaker 2: apologize for the health nut business. I'm barely hanging on, dog,

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Speaker 2: I'm kidding. How are you doing? Everybody? I mean, I'm

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Speaker 2: alive and try to try to help folks out on

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Speaker 2: Still in your home, Still in my home, trying to, yeah,

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Speaker 2: trying to, trying to. We're at the where the fires

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Speaker 2: are still raging as record in Los Angeles. But I

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Speaker 2: am lucky enough to be able to try to fucking

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Speaker 2: help some folks concentrating on the schied Row right now.

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Speaker 2: But I will just.

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Speaker 3: Say, for all, for all, you right wing lunatics are

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Speaker 3: scared of the Antifa super soldiers and the upcoming war

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Speaker 3: against socialism.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be really hard for us to make

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Speaker 2: sure all our super soldiers are showing up on time

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Speaker 2: to the battle.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's never been our strong side, being

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Speaker 1: a manner, but the scheduling.

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Speaker 2: Scheduling has been a real thing these last couple of days.

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Speaker 1: Bridget, Are you feeling better about your decision to stay

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Speaker 1: on the East Coast now? I?

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Speaker 4: Well, sort of.

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Speaker 5: I mean I'm in d C where they just put

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Speaker 5: up all of the like safety scaffolding for the inauguration.

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Speaker 1: I guess there's no safe place.

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Speaker 4: I went for a walk and I was like, damn,

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Speaker 4: this happened.

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Speaker 5: We're the city is like getting ready, so like there's

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Speaker 5: plywood over windows being put up, so you know, there's

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Speaker 5: no wildfires, which I'm grateful for, but I wouldn't say

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Speaker 5: I'm feeling pumped.

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Speaker 4: Not the chilliest here on the East coast.

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Speaker 1: God, well, are we all ready? Are we ready to

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Speaker 1: get back into the story of Oprah Winfrey?

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Speaker 4: Tell us things?

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's uh, let's let's let's do it back

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Speaker 1: back to the story. Yeah, I think this is probably

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Speaker 1: the most time we've ever spent on the early childhood

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Speaker 1: and adolescence of one of our people. It's it's just

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Speaker 1: Oprah and Joseph Stalin who have gotten two episodes devoted

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Speaker 1: to their childhood.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and a prize to the listeners for figuring out

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Speaker 2: the third in that series. Stalin Oprah, question Mark. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still being decided. But when we left off Oprah,

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Speaker 1: she'd just been taken to Milwaukee by her mother, who

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Speaker 1: lived downtown off of North ninth Street. So Oprah and

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Speaker 1: Venita lived in a single room in a boarding house

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Speaker 1: owned by Vernita's boyfriend, Vernita's boyfriend's godmother, which is not

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Speaker 1: an ideal living situation at best. Oprah later said, I

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Speaker 1: don't know why my mother ever decided she wanted me.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't equipped to take care of me. I was

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Speaker 1: just an extra burden on her. And yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it's just this is probably what she was aware of

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Speaker 1: as a kid, because her mom was there the first

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Speaker 1: four and a half years, but she probably just doesn't

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Speaker 1: really remember that. So it's got to be this uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: situation where from her mom's perspective, I was just gone

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Speaker 1: eighteen months trying to like set up a life for you.

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Speaker 1: From Oprah's perspective, it's like you were gone from as

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Speaker 1: long as I can remember, and then you moved me

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Speaker 1: into this terrible situation in a city. Right, it's so

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Speaker 1: it's a bummer.

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Speaker 2: So weird should be able to perceive. I don't think

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Speaker 2: I would have realized that was a bad situation when

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Speaker 2: I was five. Maybe I was just an oblivious kid.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I have some pretty like my

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Speaker 1: dad was gone right around the same time, when I

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Speaker 1: was like five to seven. My dad was gone because

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Speaker 1: he had to move to like New York and you know,

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Speaker 1: earn money for us, because Oklahoma is not a great

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Speaker 1: place to earn a living. Rural Oklahoma not always a

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Speaker 1: great place to earn a living. And I remember being

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Speaker 1: pissed about it for a while and not really getting

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Speaker 1: as a kid that like, oh yeah, it's really hard

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Speaker 1: actually to be an adult and take care of kids

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Speaker 1: and sometimes you have to do shit that sucks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it.

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Speaker 5: Reminds me of what Andrew was talking about in our

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Speaker 5: last episode of how much do you really truly remember

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Speaker 5: as a kid versus you're remembering how it felt?

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Speaker 4: Right, like, what do you?

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Speaker 1: I mean?

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Speaker 5: I think like and also like the idea that we

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Speaker 5: are talking a lot about these very very early years

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Speaker 5: in her life in this way of like, well, is

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Speaker 5: she a liar or not based on what she remembered

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Speaker 5: slash felt when she was four.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I went through this process when writing it and read

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Speaker 1: it when doing particularly the research, where I was like, ah, okay,

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Speaker 1: all of her family say that she's lying about this.

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Speaker 1: This is just Oprah being a bad person, trying to

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Speaker 1: myth make and make herself sound like she suffered more

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Speaker 1: than she did. And then I went through this process

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Speaker 1: of like, well, wait, what if her family's lying and

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Speaker 1: they're just angry about the money. And then I think

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Speaker 1: I've come back around to like, nobody has to be

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Speaker 1: lying here. It's just a completely different experience for her

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Speaker 1: and them, and neither of them really understand each other.

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Speaker 1: And maybe communication isn't the family strong suit, which is

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Speaker 1: ironic given Oprah's living But like, I think that's where

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Speaker 1: I've probably landed. I don't know, there's some weird similarities.

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Speaker 1: So I've been thinking a lot about like my own

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Speaker 1: situation kind of some of the stuff I was angry

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Speaker 1: for years with my parents over in terms of like

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Speaker 1: why did you put us in this situation that was

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Speaker 1: so clearly shitty? And you know, now as an adult,

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Speaker 1: I better understand that, like, well, shit just happens, you know,

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Speaker 1: And when you've got a kid, you have to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to like make your life work. It's it's

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Speaker 1: actually quite difficult to exist.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is why we call you. This isn't why

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Speaker 2: we call you the White Oprah, but this is yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know help.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's again because of all the geo metros I

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Speaker 1: give out, Right, you get.

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Speaker 2: Kind of a car, you get kind of a car.

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Speaker 4: Sort of a car, kind of a car.

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Speaker 1: So upon moving in with her mom, this is one

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Speaker 1: of the things where I do understand why Oprah is

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Speaker 1: not thrilled. So she she comes into this situation, it's

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Speaker 1: not they've got like one room, you know, it's very cramped.

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Speaker 1: She's not used to the city. And she also learns

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Speaker 1: upon arriving that she has a half sister named Patricia

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Speaker 1: and a half brother on the way who's going to

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Speaker 1: be named Jeffrey. And that is probably that is a

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Speaker 1: lot to spring on a little kid, Right, your mom

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Speaker 1: goes away and the first time you remember seeing her again,

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Speaker 1: she's like, you're gonna about to have two new siblings.

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Speaker 1: By the way, she and Patricia are never close, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's a difficult situation. In Oprah's telling of things,

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Speaker 1: she and her half sister are were immediately harsh competitors.

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Speaker 1: Oprah's interpretation is that she is the smart sister, whereas

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Speaker 1: Patricia is the hot sister, although again, they're both like

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Speaker 1: seven at this point. So I don't know if this

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Speaker 1: is Oprah later kind of thinking back on more shit

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Speaker 1: that cropped up when they were like teenagers and young adults,

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Speaker 1: or if she was thinking that way from the beginning.

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Speaker 1: My guess is that this is a little like colored

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Speaker 1: from later experience, right, oh one, God, one would hope. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: most of her insecurity here seems to have come down

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Speaker 1: to the fact, and this is something that she talks

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Speaker 1: about quite openly. She's she as a little kid was

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Speaker 1: kind of obsessed with the fact that Patricia was lighter

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Speaker 1: skinned than Oprah. Quote, I felt really ugly. The lighter

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Speaker 1: your complexion, the prettier you were. And she complained that

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Speaker 1: even though she was the smartest in the family, no

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Speaker 1: one praised me for being smart.

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Speaker 4: Oh well, that is so that is like tail as

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Speaker 4: old as time.

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Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, even when you're really young, you definitely

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Speaker 5: get the sense when there's somebody in your family who

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Speaker 5: has a lighter complexion, you definitely are aware of that.

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Speaker 5: And in a lot of families and a lot of dynamics,

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Speaker 5: there's like a very clear difference in how someone is

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Speaker 5: treated and the things that you might think of as

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Speaker 5: your gifts that should be very obvious, like I'm smart,

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Speaker 5: I'm well spoken, i have the gift of gab, whatever.

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Speaker 4: You might not feel like.

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Speaker 5: Those things are being praised comparatively to someone who's being

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Speaker 5: praised for their complexion, a thing they can't even really

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Speaker 5: control about themselves.

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Speaker 4: I definitely that really rings true to me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the things I do because I

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Speaker 1: think that's a tough thing to talk about. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things I do appreciate about Oprah's conception and

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Speaker 1: how she talks about her childhood as she is, does

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Speaker 1: not at all like hide that aspect of things, like

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Speaker 1: she has strong opinions on it. This clearly had a

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Speaker 1: massive impact on her psyche growing up.

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Speaker 5: And again I could see how her family would be

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Speaker 5: invested in that, like, oh, we were never colorist against

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Speaker 5: our own in this family.

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Speaker 4: How dare she say that that's a.

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Speaker 1: Lot of r Yeah, Yeah, and they probably I'm sure

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Speaker 1: it wasn't conscious, right, like or at least not usually,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's the way these kind of things tend

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Speaker 1: to work, I would guess, but you know, like again

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Speaker 1: it's it's I don't think Oprah's I'm certain Oprah's not

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Speaker 1: making this up. It's just far too consistent in her story,

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Speaker 1: and like you said, it makes total sense. Like this

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Speaker 1: is definitely a massive has a massive impact on the

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Speaker 1: way she perceives herself and the way she perceives her family.

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Speaker 1: She told one story to Life from when she was

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Speaker 1: about nine years old, where she was reading in a

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Speaker 1: back hallway and her mother ran up through the door open,

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Speaker 1: grabbed the book in her hand and shouted, you're nothing

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Speaker 1: but a bookworm. Get your butt outside. You think you're

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Speaker 1: better than the other kids. Oprah later remarked, of all this,

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Speaker 1: I was treated as though something was wrong with me

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Speaker 1: because I wanted to read all the time. And again

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Speaker 1: you get some denials from the family on this point.

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Speaker 1: Whoever's kind of more accurate there. Oprah isn't stopped from

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Speaker 1: reading in like a major way, Like she remains an

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Speaker 1: excellent student and a voracious reader into adulthood, like I mean,

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Speaker 1: we could talk about the book club stuff, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is one of like the big discrepancies between her

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Speaker 1: and her mom. But she's like, yeah, I got punished

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Speaker 1: for being smart and for reading.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, God, Because it also is like that's exactly

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Speaker 2: what you remember as a like Turnentine, is these conflicts

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Speaker 2: that like don't probably resonate as much with the adult.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like maybe for the adult it's this. Well, one

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Speaker 1: time I was frustrated at her because she was spending

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Speaker 1: all her time indoors, and I told her she was

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Speaker 1: a book work to get outside, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: rest of the time she was fine reading. I got

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Speaker 1: her books. But you know, as a kid, you remember

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Speaker 1: the one traumatizing mom your time your mom yelled at

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Speaker 1: you for reading.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, or it's like, you know, I was always

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Speaker 2: trying to help, you know, make this kid in my

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Speaker 2: image or whatever image I thought, and that you know,

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Speaker 2: you hang on to different.

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Speaker 1: Things, yeah, child memories. So, given some of the other

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Speaker 1: context clues of the way that people who were near

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Speaker 1: the situation talk, I think that Oprah's recollection of events

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Speaker 1: obviously like there's a lot that's true there, but there

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Speaker 1: are some inconsistencies because one of the things that Oprah's

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Speaker 1: doing in this time she continues from when she was

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Speaker 1: living with her grandma, is she keeps traveling around to

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Speaker 1: all of these churches in Milwaukee, all these like black

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Speaker 1: churches and social clubs where she'll read poems and stories

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Speaker 1: from the Bible and stories from literature. And so she's

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Speaker 1: you know, if her mom was like so ardently against

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Speaker 1: her reading, her mom wouldn't have been driving her around

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Speaker 1: to do all this stuff, like taking her to all

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Speaker 1: of them different events. So there clearly is like a

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Speaker 1: good deal of support and like people in her like

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Speaker 1: her momb recognizes, Okay, my daughter has this kind of

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Speaker 1: gift for like public speaking and talking, and I need

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Speaker 1: to do something to nurture that, right, And that's definitely

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Speaker 1: a part of the story too. In People Profiles book Oprah,

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Speaker 1: Merril Noden wrote, quote, Oprah gave recitations at black churches

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Speaker 1: and social clubs. A particular favorite was Invictus, a stirring

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Speaker 1: declaration of courage by the nineteenth century English poet William

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Speaker 1: ernst Hinley, which closes with the couplet I am the

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Speaker 1: master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,

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Speaker 1: and this is a great poems, the first poem I

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Speaker 1: ever memorized. Oprah loves it. And the third famous person

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Speaker 1: who loves this poem is friend of the pod Timothy McVey,

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Speaker 1: who recited it has his last words before being executed

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Speaker 1: by the state. So this is yet another thing that

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Speaker 1: Oprah and cousin Timmy have in common. There's so many

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Speaker 1: of them now, I mean, you don't even need to

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Speaker 1: go back and listen.

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Speaker 4: Could you say that Oprah is the black Timothy mcvayh.

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Speaker 1: Just absolutely absolutely. I mean I think Regis was the

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Speaker 1: first guy to say that, to point that out. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: still a good poem. It's not the poem's fault that

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Speaker 1: Timothy McVeigh liked it anyway. Describing the reception of her

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Speaker 1: first performances, Nodan writes, although the audiences were impressed with

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Speaker 1: her skill as a speaker, it seemed to annoy her

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Speaker 1: mother and her peers teased her mercilessly, calling her the preacher,

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Speaker 1: which I also believe that's exactly how shitty little kids are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, lies going around and being like, I want to

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Speaker 2: recite this poem.

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Speaker 1: When how old was she with She's she's like eight. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you're the poem kid, you're getting a nickname.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Phil's honestly not in the grand scheme of things,

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Speaker 2: as bad as it could have been.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't. I mean that kind of stuff's

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Speaker 1: pretty traumatic as a kid, like I got Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: remember stuff like that, like little kids give you a

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Speaker 1: shitty nickname, and yeah, that's sticks with you.

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Speaker 4: Robert.

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Speaker 5: I feel like you're about to say something about a

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Speaker 5: nickname that you've had as a youth, and.

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Speaker 1: Then you yourself. We're not bringing any of that up,

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Speaker 1: but it is like it's it's very it's very sympathetic, right,

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Speaker 1: She's this, she's this bookworm kid who likes to like

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Speaker 1: read poems to audiences of adults, and she that is

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine much that's going to isolate you more

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Speaker 1: than that, especially in like this period of time, right,

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Speaker 1: Like it's even even harder back then and like harder

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Speaker 1: to find kids. There's no internet. Oprah would have thanked

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Speaker 1: God gotten on like four chan or something today and

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Speaker 1: then she'd be fine. But yeah, you're just a lonely,

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Speaker 1: poem loving little girl at this period of time. That's

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Speaker 1: got to be difficult. The preacher. Yeah, so as an

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Speaker 1: adult in interviews, Oprah would claim that their landlady, who

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Speaker 1: is Againna she described her as a lighter skinned black woman,

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Speaker 1: didn't like Oprah for being darker than everyone else in

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Speaker 1: the house, and so Oprah was forced to sleep on

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Speaker 1: a porch in the back of the house while her

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Speaker 1: sister was allowed to sleep with their mom. As she claimed,

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Speaker 1: white people never made me feel less. Black people made

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Speaker 1: me feel less. I felt less in that house with

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Speaker 1: missus Miller. I felt less because I was too dark

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Speaker 1: and my hair was too kinky. I felt like an outcast.

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Speaker 1: And this is I mean like that that's a tough thing.

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Speaker 1: But this is also an area where there's like a

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Speaker 1: pretty major discrepancy between Oprah's recollections and recollections of the

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Speaker 1: other people in that house. And so I'll quote this

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Speaker 1: passage of Oprah a biography by Kitty Kelly next Catherine Esters,

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Speaker 1: and remember that's Oprah's aunt. And like the family historian

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Speaker 1: responded sternly to Oprah's poignant memory, this bothers me more

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Speaker 1: than her corn cob doll lies in her cockroach lies,

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Speaker 1: because it plays into the damaging discrimination practice by our

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Speaker 1: own people. I'm a dark skinned woman Oprah's grandfather, Earlis,

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Speaker 1: was black enough to be painted by a brush, and

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Speaker 1: Oprah is as dark as a preacher's prayer book. But

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Speaker 1: when she says things like that, she reminds me of

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Speaker 1: my cousin Frank, who did not wish to be what

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Speaker 1: he was and discriminated among his kin, preferring the lighter

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Speaker 1: skin to the darker skinned folks. Oprah slept on a

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Speaker 1: porch in the back of the room of the house,

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Speaker 1: but only because Vernita had to take care of her

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Speaker 1: baby and there was just one bedroom.

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Speaker 2: That's it.

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Speaker 1: Period. If Oprah was discriminated against because of her skin color,

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Speaker 1: i'd tell you, says Miss Ester's a civil rights activist

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Speaker 1: who worked for the Urban League in Milwaukee. And I

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Speaker 1: can't really like cast that aside either, So I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't really know what to do there other than

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Speaker 1: kind of read both of those very much conflicting stories.

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Speaker 1: Systeings to you.

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Speaker 2: I will say the tone of that passage, see, I

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Speaker 2: was initially going to indicate that she was going to

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Speaker 2: say that the sleeping on the porch was not factual,

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Speaker 2: so to land on, well, she definitely was on the porch.

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Speaker 2: Is still a little like good.

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Speaker 4: That's not in dispute.

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Speaker 1: That's not in dispute. She was, in fact sleeping on

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Speaker 1: the porch. Yes, just like, oh boy, it's just wasn't

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Speaker 1: you know, racism or just we have no space because

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Speaker 1: we're very poor.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I will say there's something about this conversation. I

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Speaker 5: don't know if it totally fits, but you know, I

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Speaker 5: think that a lot of black folks and folks of

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Speaker 5: color when you get older and you think about the

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Speaker 5: way that you showed up amongst your own people growing up,

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Speaker 5: like I definitely went through a.

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Speaker 4: Thing where, you know, I don't even know how to

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Speaker 4: put it.

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Speaker 5: Like, you definitely can internalize like they don't my own

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Speaker 5: people are rejecting me because I like anime or because

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Speaker 5: I'm nerdy and too smart. And then you get a

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Speaker 5: little older and it's like, wait, am I a pain

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Speaker 5: in the ass.

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Speaker 4: And that's why they're rejecting me? And like it's very

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Speaker 4: easy to like.

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Speaker 5: Internalize some very self serving reasons for why you feel

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Speaker 5: the way you feel. And then you get a little

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Speaker 5: more mature and you're like, well, was that really what

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Speaker 5: was going on?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And there's also like like a I feel like

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Speaker 2: with this type of thing too, it's like whatever the

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Speaker 2: real story is, it's like the kernel of truth, even

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Speaker 2: if just to like the phenomenon makes it really hard

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Speaker 2: to push back where you're like she was.

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Speaker 1: Still sleeping on the porch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm just like but but maybe but you know,

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Speaker 2: and I'm like, even the it's in the middle of

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Speaker 2: it is just like probably just let this go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I fe only I had to present

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Speaker 1: both of these things. But yeah, I don't actually know

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Speaker 1: where the truth lies here now. For her sake, Catherine

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Speaker 1: Esters thinks that the explanation for why Oprah felt the

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Speaker 1: way she did is more benign, which is that once

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Speaker 1: she moved to Milwaukee, she was for the first time

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Speaker 1: and very suddenly not an only child and the center

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Speaker 1: of attention in her household. She was suddenly the oldest

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Speaker 1: of three kids, and her two baby siblings got more

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Speaker 1: attention than her, and this made her very unhappy. And

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that's not a non factor, right, Like that's

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Speaker 1: such a thing, Like I don't have any trouble believing

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Speaker 1: that that's that had a massive impact on her as

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Speaker 1: a kid right now. As I've noted, Kitty's book is

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Speaker 1: quite aggressive, and she is a woman who has built

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Speaker 1: a career off of puncturing the reputations of beloved famous people.

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Speaker 1: Her work is caddie as hell, but she does make

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Speaker 1: a decent point here. Quote, the only photo I have

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Speaker 1: of my grandmother, she's holding a white child, Oprah said

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Speaker 1: at the age of fifty one. Yet a published picture

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Speaker 1: of Oprah's desk shows a photo of her grandmother with

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Speaker 1: her arm draped lovingly around Oprah as a little girl,

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Speaker 1: with no white child in sight. And it's stuff like

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Speaker 1: that where it's like, well, okay, that's that's not a

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Speaker 1: there's a discrepancy, but maybe no, that's like, that's just

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Speaker 1: obvious myth making. You've got a photo of your grandmother

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Speaker 1: on your desk, all right, you just said that because

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Speaker 1: you know, it made a case to an interviewer or

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Speaker 1: something like, you've got pictures of your grandmother with her

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Speaker 1: with you. That was just like not a not a

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Speaker 1: not a true statement. So there's some there's some myth

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Speaker 1: making going on here as well, like that we can

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Speaker 1: kind of clearly lay out there. So again it's a

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Speaker 1: complicated most of this. I'm still on the whole as

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Speaker 1: a childhood. This is a very it's hard not to

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Speaker 1: be on Oprah's side at this point. And I believe

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Speaker 1: Oprah when she says of her grandmother, every time she

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Speaker 1: would ever talk about those white children, there would be

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Speaker 1: this sort of glow insider. No one ever glowed when

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Speaker 1: they saw me. And you know, that also sounds true,

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Speaker 1: like that sounds like the kind of thing that that

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Speaker 1: would stick with you as a kid into adulthood.

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Speaker 2: But it also is like the exact thing that kids

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Speaker 2: say all the time, you know, like.

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Speaker 1: I believe it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but but as in like every kid feels

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Speaker 2: that way, that like there's a light in someone's eyes

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Speaker 2: until they're talking about me. It's like, yeah, I know,

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Speaker 2: but everyone feels that way?

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Speaker 4: Does everyone feel that way?

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Speaker 1: Or did we just get fucked up too?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 5: Many people someone listening is like, what are you talking about,

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Speaker 5: Andrew parents eye they.

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Speaker 1: Walk out the door to live their emotionally healthy life,

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Speaker 1: have their good relationships once.

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying, there's certainly where we're right in the

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Speaker 2: phase of like adolescence where it's just like everybody hates me,

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Speaker 2: Like that's such a common idea among kids, sure, like

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Speaker 2: of all, and that's that's also one of the like.

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Speaker 1: The key facts about becoming incredibly rich and famous. Is

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Speaker 1: that all of these like weird little idiosyncrasies and like

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Speaker 1: anger at you know, petty injustices or even some serious

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Speaker 1: injustices that most people just have to get over. You

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Speaker 1: have the ability to make other people care about it,

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Speaker 1: and the ability to also like sometimes make it other

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Speaker 1: people's problems, as we're seeing with a much worse billionaire

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Speaker 1: who's in the public eye right now. Because at least Oprah,

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Speaker 1: what I'll say for her is like how much of

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Speaker 1: this is accurate or not? And how much of this

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Speaker 1: is myth making? She has spent a lot of her

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Speaker 1: like time as a philanthropist putting money towards like child

437
00:21:54,280 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 1: abuse causes, so you know, you can't really I guess

438
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: that's that's like in terms of billionaire coping strategies, she's

439
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,480
Speaker 1: definitely in like the upper ten percent. Oh my god, Yeah,

440
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 1: it's that.

441
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 2: That is the thing that ultimately this entire series is

442
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:16,720
Speaker 2: going to hinge on is like, however much you might

443
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 2: want to you know, or you one would categorize Oprah

444
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,679
Speaker 2: as some kind of bastard, there is a grating on

445
00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 2: the curve element of it, which might just put her

446
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 2: at not a bastard given.

447
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 1: Her, Yes, I kind of think again, as we'll talk

448
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 1: about like the actual harmful, toxic stuff she was involved

449
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:39,120
Speaker 1: with once her media career got going. It's still more

450
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 1: than anything, a case of well, like, we probably shouldn't

451
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 1: make any individual person that famous because like your own

452
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: flaws and blind sites are going to cause you to

453
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: do things that because of your platform and the level

454
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 1: of your fame, will be harmful. But yeah, I really

455
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 1: do think overall my opinion of her is like, yeah,

456
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:00,160
Speaker 1: this is about the best case scenario for someone who

457
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: gets this Richard famous, right right right. That is kind

458
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: of what I have been coming back to because I

459
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: definitely started my reading more hostile towards her because I

460
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 1: had been thinking of Oprah purely in terms of like, well,

461
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: now I got to think about doctor Oz because you

462
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 1: put this fuck around TV, Oprah, Why did you do that?

463
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, I have a lot more sympathy with her now,

464
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,239
Speaker 1: which doesn't happen often when we're doing these Usually you're like, oh,

465
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: this person sucked ass from the jump.

466
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 5: I feel like it's got to be more interesting when

467
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 5: the bastards are a little bit complex, No, like where

468
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 5: it's like ooh, I kind of have sympathy or empathy

469
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 5: for them in some ways.

470
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 4: But they did that like gotta be a little meteor.

471
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is meaty. And I also there's also like

472
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: a sick joy in reading a book like Kitty Kelly's,

473
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,360
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, I would never write something that's

474
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 1: this mean about a traumatized child, but you can't.

475
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 2: Oh man.

476
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: So Vernita obviously needed a lot of help watching the kids,

477
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 1: which meant family came over to visit and babysit a lot.

478
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 1: And this is where the story gets very dark because

479
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: one of the family members who helped watch Oprah was

480
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: a nineteen year old cousin. I think they initially go

481
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 1: over to the house where the cousin is, but then

482
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: he starts coming over there, and at some point in

483
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 1: this process, Oprah is made to sleep with him. I

484
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: think initially just because there's not enough beds, right, Like

485
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,440
Speaker 1: they're literally just sharing beds because there's only so many.

486
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: And then he starts molesting her. After the first night

487
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,120
Speaker 1: that he rapes her, he takes her to the zoo

488
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: afterwards and in her words, buys her silence with ice cream. Yeah,

489
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: that's not great. No one else in the family obviously

490
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: was aware at the time. Aunt Catherine, the family historian,

491
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 1: was aware that something is off. And which interesting is

492
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: that the family pretty much always denies Oprah's what Oprah

493
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 1: says about the sexual abuse that she suffered. I think

494
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: because they don't want to admit that they were missing

495
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 1: some very problematic stuff. But one of the things that's

496
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: interesting here is that Aunt Catherine clearly knows something is

497
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 1: wrong because around this time she writes to Vernon Winfrey,

498
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: who's the guy everyone thinks is Oprah's father, and begs

499
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: him to take his daughter in right, So she don't.

500
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: She's never I don't think she still has accepted that

501
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: this happened to Oprah, but she's aware enough at the

502
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: time that something is unhealthy about this living situation that

503
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 1: she's like, hey, Vernon, you should maybe think about taking

504
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: your daughter. And she's not doing well here. And that's

505
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: interesting to me too. So Vernon lived in Nashville. He

506
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 1: and his wife Zelma were both sterile, I guess, and

507
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 1: they had no kids, right, and I think they had

508
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: tried to have kids, so one or both of them

509
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: was like not biologically able to have kids. Vernon clearly

510
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: had at one point, although actually that's not a guarantee,

511
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: because it's come out since that he might not have

512
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 1: been the day biologically. In any case, he agrees to

513
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 1: take He and Zelma agree to take Oprah in and

514
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 1: this is a vastly different environment for her. For one thing,

515
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: he is a small business owner. He runs at this

516
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: point a barber shop. He was a military man, and

517
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: the Winfreees ran their home like a military operation, which

518
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: was pretty much entirely geared towards producing the best possible

519
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: educational outcome for Oprah. So she goes right away from

520
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 1: the situation where she's in a very chaotic environment with

521
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 1: not much resources, to the situation where again two adults

522
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: are entirely focused on making her do as well in

523
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: school as possible. Oprah continued to be an outgoing child.

524
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: She's a natural performer. Adults who around her will say

525
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 1: that she would kind of automatically make herself the boss

526
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: of any group of kids that she was in. Her

527
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: favorite game to play with the neighbor kids was school

528
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: like she would play teacher and she would make them

529
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 1: all play students. And I'm going to read a quote

530
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: from her dad Vernon here, because this is pretty funny

531
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: From what I observed. Then, Lily and Betty Jean didn't

532
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: enjoy playing school as much as Oprah did. I think

533
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: that's because she was always the teacher, always scolding her

534
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: little playmates as she scrawled invisible lessons on a make

535
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: believe chalkboard. Lily and Betty Jean would sit attentively at

536
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: imaginary desks, hoping against hope that Oprah didn't call their

537
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: names during spelling bees. Can't say I much blame them,

538
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: because if they misspelled a word, there was trouble. Oprah

539
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 1: would get her little switch, which was not at all imaginary,

540
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: and spank the palms of their hands. That's a little unhinged, right.

541
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 4: I mean, where do you think she learned that behavior?

542
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely, But it's still pretty funny.

543
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: It's such a fine line between how is that even

544
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 2: playing school for the other two? Really it is.

545
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 1: It does give you some insight in Vernon where it's like,

546
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: can you just let her do that?

547
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 5: I have to say, though, I used to play school,

548
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 5: and it's only now hearing this am I like, Oh,

549
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 5: was it like not fun for the others that I

550
00:27:57,920 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 5: was a teacher to have?

551
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 4: It was not fun for all parties? Oh yeah?

552
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: The other kids might not have liked that at all.

553
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: Maybe I just scared them in line. He did claim that. Eventually,

554
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: after a while, he confronted Opraen was like, hey, you

555
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: should let the other kids place teachers sometime. They don't

556
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: seem to be enjoying this quote. She looked at me

557
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: with the sweetest expression, all cute and bewildered about how

558
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: I could ask such a silly thing. Why Daddy, she

559
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: informed me. Lily and Betty Jean can't teach till they

560
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: learn how to read. Yeah, speaking of learning how to read,

561
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: the sponsors of our podcast never did. That's why they

562
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: can focus entirely on delivering the best value and the

563
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: best products to you. They don't know how to read.

564
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: There's nothing else at all in their heads but a

565
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: desire to please you with the absolute best consumer experience imaginable.

566
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: And we're back. Ah, we're talking Oprah talking, pra talking

567
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: pra We probably won't use that anywhere. That's not very good.

568
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: I don't like it, Okay. So Oprah thrives. She spends

569
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: a year with Vernon and his wife and very stable.

570
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: You know, she has a lot of attention devoted to

571
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: her education. She's doing very very well. She's also away

572
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: from this nineteen year old cousin who was molesting her,

573
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: So that's a huge plus is two plus two. Unfortunately,

574
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: the situation does not last, because Vernita still harbors dreams

575
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: of raising all of her children together as quote, a

576
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: real family for whatever reason, not that she needs one.

577
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: Oprah always saw Vernon as her father, but doesn't seem

578
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: to have felt the same way, at least initially about

579
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: his wife. She was dead desperate for a normal home

580
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: with two parents, and claims other kids teased her over this,

581
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: which I'm certain is true. That summer, at age ten,

582
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: she went to visit and her mom was like, Hey,

583
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: I'm about to marry this guy I've been seeing for

584
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: a while. You are finally going to get your dream.

585
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: You know, why don't you move back to Milwaukee? And

586
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: this marriage never happens. This guy eventually dies, and so

587
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: like this is just this situation just collapses as badly

588
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: as it possibly can. But Oprah still makes the choice

589
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: to leave the stable home with her dad because of

590
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: how taunted she is by this possibility of like being

591
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: part of a full and stable family. And this is

592
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: one of those things where like, again I'm not there.

593
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: It's very hard to at least read Oprah's recollection of

594
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: events and not think, wow, Vernita not doing a great

595
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: job here. Because when Oprah decides to stay with her mom,

596
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: Vernita breaks the news to Vernon in the most devastating

597
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: way imaginable. She doesn't like call him and like tell him, hey,

598
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: you know there's been a change. She waits for him

599
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: to drive to Milwaukee to like show up to take

600
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: Oprah back home and says, oh, actually, no, I'm keeping her.

601
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: You should leave, which is rough move. And this is

602
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,719
Speaker 1: more or less how Vernon recalls things. He remembers weeping

603
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: as he left the house because he could tell that

604
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: he was leaving Oprah in an environment where she would

605
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: not receive adequate care. He told Kitty Kelly, I never

606
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: saw that sweet little girl again. And he actually is

607
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: going to raise Oprah again. He's saying that she was

608
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: a different kid when he returned. Yeah, when Oprah returned

609
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: to her mother's home, nothing had changed for the better.

610
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: The same cousin continued to come over to babysit, and

611
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: he picked right up where he had left off. She's

612
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: molested off and on from ages ten to fourteen. The

613
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: times being what they were, and her educational career being

614
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: somewhat erratic and interrupted. Young Oprah did not initially have

615
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: a great grasp on the physical consequences of sex and

616
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: how they worked. And I'm going to quote from Oprah

617
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: Winfrey by Meryl Noden here. Winfrey understood so little about

618
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: sex that she went through the fifth grade convinced she

619
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: was pregnant every time I had a stomach ache, She

620
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: has said, I thought I was pregnant and asked to

621
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom. So if I had it, nobody

622
00:31:58,800 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: could see.

623
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 2: That For me?

624
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: Was the terror? Was I going to have it? How

625
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: could I hide it? All the people would be mad

626
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: at me? How could I keep it in my room

627
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: without my mother knowing? And boy, we really really need

628
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: better sex ed It's kind of depressing how many kids

629
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: today probably are not benefiting from better knowledge than Oprah

630
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: had access to at that point.

631
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 2: Like real, bleak, yeah, it's only gonna go worse.

632
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: Just yeah, so yeah, I mean that really brought it

633
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: home to me, Like what a lot of these people

634
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: want to change the system back to is like kids

635
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: being in exactly the situation Oprah was, like hiding in

636
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: the bathroom because you don't know, like you just want

637
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: to be in a safe place in case you have

638
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: a kid, because you don't understand any of this stuff.

639
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 2: Well, it's worried about getting in trouble after being.

640
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: Even though the sex was forced on you. Yeah, like

641
00:32:54,600 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's fucked up. Oprah grows into a

642
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: teenager who is very bright, very sexually confused, and who

643
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: is not at all being watched by her guardian. She

644
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: starts seeing lots of older boys and some men, some

645
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: of whom are eighteen nineteen years old. In both of

646
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: the books I've read and in the recollections of Oprah

647
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: and the people who knew her, the people around her

648
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: tended to see it as she is incredibly promiscuous in

649
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: this period of time. Right, Obviously, what is happening here

650
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: is that this is a reaction to the sexual violence

651
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: that she experienced from a young age. But that is

652
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: how she is treated by the adults in her life

653
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: as a result of what's going on. Right, One line

654
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: from her that stuck with me was that she saw

655
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: her behavior as revenge to the adults around her. They

656
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: didn't care about what was being done to her, so

657
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: she was going to behave in a way that forced

658
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: them to pay attention to her, even if that meant

659
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: like really yeah, yeah, So.

660
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 5: I mean not to continue to like make Oprah's story

661
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 5: worry about the traumas and historical baggage of like some

662
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 5: black communities. But like again, this idea that I think

663
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 5: is really foisted upon black girls and young women about

664
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 5: being quote fast, where when you are clearly having a

665
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 5: response to like a sexual trauma or something that has happened,

666
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:24,319
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's used to sort of marginalize you

667
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,479
Speaker 5: and other you and like say something is wrong with you,

668
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 5: as opposed to like, oh are the are the adults

669
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 5: around you somehow failing you? The fact that like her

670
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 5: nineteen year old, you know, adult cousin was it seems

671
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 5: like not reprimanded and still welcome back into the home.

672
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Oprah, young.

673
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 5: Oprah, her response to this sexual trauma is for her

674
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 5: to be criticized by her own family, is really telling

675
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 5: like who gets demonized and who gets like welcomed back

676
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 5: with no accountability?

677
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:57,720
Speaker 1: Right, right, right. I think that's a really really good point,

678
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: and it's probably not sp that Kittie writes so much

679
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: better about this very messy chapter of Oprah's life than Meryll,

680
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: who is a male journalist. But you know, it's there's

681
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: some there's some bad lines in Meryll's book about this,

682
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: this book that was written in nineteen ninety nine, probably

683
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: the worst of which is quote when Oprah was thirteen,

684
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,320
Speaker 1: her figure was thirty six, twenty three, thirty six, certain

685
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: to attract male attention. And I don't know, man, I

686
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: feel like there's a better way to write about a

687
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:32,479
Speaker 1: thirteen year old girl than that. Jesus every time, it's

688
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: just like.

689
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 7: That's yeh, man, Like I mean, like my own mother,

690
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 7: who bought most of my clothes at thirteen, didn't know

691
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 7: my figure sizes to the number. That's so disturbing.

692
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,280
Speaker 4: I didn't know my figure size the number.

693
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 1: The reason Meryl does is that when Oprah talks about this,

694
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: she will give the numbers for her figure. But also like,

695
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: that's her, that's right. I don't know, Manyl, like quote

696
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: her if you're gonna do that, Like though just writing

697
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: it out that may mix. It makes me very distrustful

698
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: of you.

699
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the conclusion drawn is that the conclusion alone

700
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 2: should put you on a watch list. Yeah.

701
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, He basically is like, can you blame him, though, like, yeah.

702
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's certain, because like I don't

703
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: think most men look at thirteen year old girls that way,

704
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I would hope. So, following what her

705
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,720
Speaker 1: abuser had done to her, she started using ice cream

706
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: to get her younger sister to leave the house she

707
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: could have boys over, one of whom was her cousin's boyfriend,

708
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: who she claimed treated her as a pet. She expressed

709
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 1: a feeling of frustration that none of the adults seemed

710
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: to catch on about what she was doing and what

711
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: was being done to her, and to an extent, again,

712
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: she's like putting herself out there, doing this in part

713
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 1: to provoke a reaction from an adult in her life,

714
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: and no one reacts, nobody draws a line, nobody intervened. Now,

715
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: throughout all of this, Oprah's grades remain excellent. She is

716
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: still a pretty good student while she's dealing with all

717
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: of this. In the seventh grade, she's transferred to a

718
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,760
Speaker 1: better school via Upward Bound. This is a federal affirmative

719
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: action program to help poor kids who wanted to be

720
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 1: first generation college students by providing them with more support

721
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:22,399
Speaker 1: and better educational opportunities. In Oprah's case, this meant being

722
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: bussed with a handful of other black kids to a

723
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: very white school that had just been desegregated. And one

724
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: interesting thing to me is Oprah talks a lot about

725
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: affirmative action and getting into schools and getting jobs only

726
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 1: because of affirmative action, and very consistently. When you talk

727
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: to the people who like hired here, they're like, no,

728
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 1: she was like, actually the best candidate. Obviously she's Oprah.

729
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: She was a very good candidate to work for a

730
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: TV station or whatever. Right, But you can kind of

731
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: see some of that, Like, it's interesting to me that

732
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 1: that's the attitude that she has towards it, even though

733
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: like everyone around her is like, no, that really was

734
00:37:58,000 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: not the situation.

735
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 2: We'll say a little bit that I can't imagine getting

736
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 2: the counterfactual even if it were the case of the

737
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: time in a direct interview, Yeah, someone, hey did you

738
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 2: hire Oprah despite her.

739
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: Noting the best the other part of it too, Yeah,

740
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: And they were gonna say, well, yes, I find that

741
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:24,839
Speaker 1: hard to believe either way. It's like, I mean, what

742
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: you can say is all these programs did exactly what

743
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 1: they were supposed to, because she wound up creating a

744
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: media empire worth many billions of dollars as a result

745
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,760
Speaker 1: of getting these opportunities. So they were known on campus

746
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: as the bus kids. Oprah and these other kids were

747
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: being bussed to this more affluent white school. The whole situation,

748
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: it's a very weird one where she once she starts

749
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: going here, she starts being taken like invited into homes

750
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 1: largely so that these kind of like up affluent, liberal

751
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: white families can have a black kid over for dinner

752
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: and like showcase how cool they are. Like that's one

753
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: of her early and it's like a pretty I think,

754
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: a good experience as she takes it just because like

755
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 1: some adults are giving me positive attention, right, Like that's

756
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: a thing for her. She continues to engage in extreme

757
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: behavior in a desperate attempt to make her mom or

758
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: somebody parent her, and this eventually includes a fake robbery

759
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: and an assault. So here's the situation. Oprah had started

760
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: wearing glasses bifocals, and the first pair that she got

761
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: were ugly and made her look, in her words, like

762
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: a librarian. It became clear that she was only going

763
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: to get a new pair if the old ones broke,

764
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: so she threw them away, and then she like messed

765
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: up her room and like cut herself in the cheek

766
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: and called the police claiming that there had been a

767
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: smash and grab. Now, because she's a kid at this point,

768
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: she like is pretended to be concussed. But when the

769
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: police look around, they're like, so what else did they take?

770
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: And she's like, just my glasses. So not the smoothest

771
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: crime anyone's ever faced. You gotta take something, you gotta

772
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: take like high fire something out of there, you know,

773
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: classic classic glasses criminals. Now, events like this probably contributed

774
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: to her family not believing her when she finally worked

775
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: up the courage to tell them that she'd been molested,

776
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: which happens around this period of time. So you know,

777
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: from her family's perspective, she's this kid who you know,

778
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: lied about getting robbed. They've seen her out with a

779
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: bunch of guys. They think she's just promiscuous. And that's

780
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: how her aunt Catherine feels decades later. I don't believe

781
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: a bit of it. Oprah was a wild child, running

782
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: the streets of Milwaukee in those days and not accepting

783
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: discipline from her mother. And when you get to like

784
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: that aspect of it, it's like, Oh, I get why

785
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: Oprah does not have a good relationship with a lot

786
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: of feast people like that is not at all surprising

787
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 1: to me.

788
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,760
Speaker 5: Now, yeah, and this is the woman who still denies

789
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 5: Oprah's sexual abuse.

790
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

791
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want this person in my life yet.

792
00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: No, not hard to see why she doesn't. Obviously we

793
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 1: can't know precisely what happened, but it's going to be interesting.

794
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: Some of part of I think why Aunt Catherine has

795
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: this attitude and why some of the family members that

796
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 1: are maybe jealous of Oprah have this attitude, is that

797
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,439
Speaker 1: later on in her career, Oprah is going to make

798
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: the sexual violence she experienced a very central that's actually

799
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: central to why she got so famous is the way

800
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: in which she reveals this to her audience, that the

801
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: context in which she does that has a massive impact

802
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: on her career and on It's like one of the

803
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: things that gets people to pay attention to her because

804
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,919
Speaker 1: women in prominent places in the media really didn't talk

805
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: about stuff like this the way that she did. And

806
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: so there's this attitude from some in her family that

807
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: she's again just doing it all for attention. I'm not

808
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: saying that because I think that's accurate. I'm saying like that,

809
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: you have to understand if you want to know, Like,

810
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: why is her family saying all of this? This is

811
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: part of the story, right.

812
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 2: Like she has an incentive so they can point to that, right.

813
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, yeah, it's it's when you really dig

814
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: into the family drama, it's very unpleasant. In the summer

815
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight, Oprah goes back to Nashville to

816
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: visit her father in Zelma, his brother, her uncle, Trenton,

817
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: drove her.

818
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 5: No.

819
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: Up to this point, Oprah considered Trenton her favorite uncle. Then,

820
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: while they're driving, he asks her if she'd started dating yet,

821
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: Thinking that she was having a safe conversation with her uncle,

822
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: she said yes, but that it was hard because all

823
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: the boys that her age wanted to do was French kiss.

824
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: According to Oprah, her uncle immediately pulled over to the

825
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: side of the road and molested her. She does not

826
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: tell anyone immediately, but after visiting with her dad, she

827
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: returns to Milwaukee furious, and she runs away from home.

828
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: This time she's gone for a full week. Her mother

829
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 1: is panicking. Oprah claims that during this time, she was

830
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: hustling for money on the street, and she meets Aretha

831
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: Franklin literally running up to Aretha Franklin's limo and crying,

832
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: saying that she'd been abandoned and she needed one hundred

833
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: dollars to get back to her family in Ohio. She

834
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: says Aretha gave her the money, which she then took

835
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,760
Speaker 1: to a hotel and spent several days drunk on wine,

836
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: eating room service food. I don't know if this happened Aretha.

837
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone ever asked Aretha when they were both,

838
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,399
Speaker 1: like when she was still alive. I haven't found any

839
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: evidence of that, And I'm kind of surprised because we've

840
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: had this info for a while and it's like, well,

841
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: I would kind of want to know if Aretha remembers this, right,

842
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I don't know. You you'll have to

843
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: take Oprah's word on that one. It would be kind

844
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 1: of a weird thing to lie about. But I don't know.

845
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 2: It's just like you would assume potentially that like this

846
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 2: would not register on Aretha Franklin's radar.

847
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, she had a lot going on. I

848
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: guess Yeah, I don't know. I'm just kind of surprised

849
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: no one ever asked her about it, as far as

850
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: I can find out, because like Oprah, like there, there

851
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: was plenty of time after which Oprah was very famous

852
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 1: and Aretha was still alive. I'm just kind of nobody

853
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: know what he thought to do that, huh.

854
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 5: And Aretha was giving interviews and stuff like for even

855
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 5: in right before she died, right she took Yeah, yeah.

856
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 2: I kind of think this is a kind of thing

857
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 2: that's just on someone's comms team is like, we're not

858
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 2: talking about this.

859
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:13,399
Speaker 1: We're not talking about this. We don't want to talk

860
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: about Aretha giving wine money to young Oprah Winfrey.

861
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that being now.

862
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: After this incident, Vernita tried to drop her daughter when

863
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: Oprah finally comes home. Vernita tried to put her daughter

864
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: in a school for delinquent girls. She was told the

865
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: processing time would take two weeks, which was too long,

866
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 1: and in a move that really tells you a lot

867
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 1: about Vernita, Vernita's like, well fuck that. Then she calls

868
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: Vernon and she says, hey, actually you should take her back.

869
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 2: Now.

870
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 1: This is kind of a cheeky move because by this point,

871
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,279
Speaker 1: Vernon had sat down and done the math, and he

872
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: had counted back from Oprah's birth date in January of

873
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, and he'd realized that he was away

874
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: with the army during the period of time in which

875
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: she was most likely conceived. So he's got pretty good

876
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: evidence that he is not, in fact the buyol logical

877
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,719
Speaker 1: father of this kid. But instead of being like, you know,

878
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,919
Speaker 1: you're on your own, Vernita, or she's on your own,

879
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 1: this is a kid he's still bonded with that, he's

880
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: he's thought of most of her life as his daughter.

881
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 1: He says he'll take her back if Fernita gives up

882
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: all claim to the girl. And that's what happens. Oprah

883
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: moves back to Nashville, and, unbeknownst to everyone at this point,

884
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: the fourteen year old girl was now pregnant with a

885
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: baby she believed was the result of her uncle Trenton

886
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: molesting her. So that's a lot to deal with, yeah,

887
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: put lightly, but you know, big ups for Vernon there.

888
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 1: That's like a pretty and this is like he's it's

889
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: very interesting. He's like gotten basically nothing from Oprah, like

890
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 1: asked for basically nothing from her. Like he takes a

891
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: lot of pride in the fact that, like his barber shop,

892
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: put her through school and supported her, which is, you know,

893
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: he's right to do so, obviously, But this is probably

894
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: the luckiest single break of her life. I think Oprah

895
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: would say this was the luckiest single break of her

896
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: life that Vernon, even when he got this kind of

897
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: excuse to not be a father, decided to continue being

898
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:12,160
Speaker 1: her father. Yeah. How does she talk about him now?

899
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: Very positively? Yeah, I think you get the feeling there's

900
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: some stuff they don't quite agree on, but like, she's

901
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 1: very open about the fact that she owes a lot

902
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: to him, obviously, and Vernon's clearly clearly very proud of

903
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: her success, even though again you get the feeling like, oh,

904
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: he doesn't really understand like what she's been doing most

905
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 1: of her career in a lot of ways.

906
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:34,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

907
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: So, once she started high school in Nashville, Vernon again

908
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: became a strict disciplinarian, imposing a dress code on her

909
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 1: and demanding excellent academic performance. Oprah was always a great student,

910
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: but she stopped. She had stopped by this point enjoying school,

911
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: and part of why it was that in the winter

912
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight, she was now heavily pregnant, hiding

913
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 1: it under layers of jackets. Eventually she could not hide

914
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: it from her father any longer, and she told him

915
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: what happened and that his brother had been the life rapist.

916
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 1: The short of it is, Vernon didn't believe her about

917
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: his brother, and I still don't think he does. He

918
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 1: doesn't say she's lying, it's he kind of like deflects

919
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: the question. Like the most recent interview I've read was

920
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: him saying something like, well, it's very hard to accept

921
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: something like that, you know, with somebody that you're close to.

922
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: I'm not privy to the full details there, but you

923
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:32,720
Speaker 1: get the Obviously, it's a significant pain point in the relationship.

924
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,359
Speaker 1: The way Oprah describes it, her earlier promiscuity was used

925
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 1: as an excuse by the most stable adults in her

926
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: life to be like, no, my beloved brother didn't do this, right,

927
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: this is you know, there's some other explanation here, you know,

928
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's even the most supportive family member in

929
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:57,720
Speaker 1: her life is doing this to her. So that's not great.

930
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: Oprah Grave birth too much prematurely in the later winter

931
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight, for whatever it's worth. Vernon and

932
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: his wife had pulled together in the eleventh hour in

933
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 1: that point and agreed to raise the child so that

934
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: she could start her life like that was their plan.

935
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 1: We'll raise her. This child is like another of our kids,

936
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: and you can go off and go to college and stuff.

937
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: But none of them ever get that chance. The baby

938
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: is very ill, it never leaves the hospital, and it

939
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: dies after less than a month. Oprah describes this as

940
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: the most emotional, confusing, and traumatic experience of her life,

941
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: which yep, that it would be from what I can

942
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: glean via reading. This is the kind of moment that

943
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: basically ended her childhood, and it seems like everyone is

944
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: aware of that. At the time. Everyone decides to lock

945
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: down and bury what had happened as a family secret.

946
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 1: They never talk about this again, right, and so Oprah

947
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: has to process everything that's happened without being able to

948
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: talk about it to her family. All Vernon would say

949
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: to her was that he thought that God had given

950
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: her a second chance, which is maybe not the best

951
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: thing to say about you baby dying. I don't know,

952
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 1: I don't know.

953
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 2: I mean, without like wholly extrapolating a lot, or like

954
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 2: putting my I mean, you know, my parents are not

955
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 2: of that generation, but that is the type of shit

956
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 2: they would do. Like, yeah, there are types of parents

957
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 2: that would think this is you know, and would think

958
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 2: not talking about it is the best way because we

959
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 2: mostly just have negative things to say.

960
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: So let's just pretend it didn't happen.

961
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's yeah, fucking dark.

962
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, not a lot of light levity in

963
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: this part of the Oprah story, Guys.

964
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you that's sort of the nature of

965
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:51,719
Speaker 2: this show.

966
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll get more fun when we're playing some clips

967
00:49:55,840 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: of TV from the nineteen eighties. But first, here's a

968
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: so Oprah returns to school the following year with a

969
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: terrible secret, but also like, this is kind of she changes, right,

970
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: she kind of takes this is like a new lease

971
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 1: on life, almost is how it's described. She gets heavily

972
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: into speech and debate. She starts doing competitive like drama contests.

973
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: She starts winning championships. She starts telling her teachers that

974
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: she's going to be a movie star. According to her

975
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: drama teacher, Andrea Haynes, Oprah insisted she wanted to change

976
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: her name from Oprah to Gail because she thought it

977
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: would help her in Hollywood, and Haines advised her to

978
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: keep going as Oprah because it was a unique name

979
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: and Oprah had a unique voice, so probably good advice

980
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: given what happens later, the new Oprah gets invited to

981
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 1: speak as part of a church event in Los Angeles

982
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. She gets to see Hollywood for

983
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 1: the first time, and she came back telling her dad

984
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 1: about the stars in front of Man's Chinese Theater and

985
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: promising to earn one of her own. One day as

986
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,359
Speaker 1: a junior, when filling out yearbook questionnaires that asked where

987
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 1: will I be in twenty years, she checked famous, So

988
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: she has made a pretty clear decision about where she

989
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: wants to go at this point. In nineteen seventy, she

990
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: wins a contest sponsored by the Black Elks Club of

991
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:22,760
Speaker 1: Nashville and she gets invited to deliver a speech in Philadelphia.

992
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:24,879
Speaker 1: This was her first big crowd. There's like a ten

993
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: thousand person audience, and she recalled later only that she

994
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: felt totally comfortable addressing this massive group of strangers. The

995
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: remainder of her high school career is basically an endless

996
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,399
Speaker 1: parade of tournament victories and a surprising amount of jet

997
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 1: setting for a high school girl. She's flown to Palo

998
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:44,239
Speaker 1: Alto for in nineteen seventy one for a contest at Stanford.

999
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: She's the only black student at the national forensics competition.

1000
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: That year. She gets into student government, winning election as

1001
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: vice president with a campaign slogan, put a little Color.

1002
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:55,320
Speaker 2: In your life.

1003
00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: Vote for the grand Ole Oprah. She's at like a

1004
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 1: majority white school, you know, like, yeah, I appreciate the humor. Yeah, yeah,

1005
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: the grand All Oprah too. Now, one thing that's interesting

1006
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: because I haven't read as many as I should have

1007
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 1: of like stories of the first kind of generation of

1008
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 1: black kids to get integrated into like majority white schools.

1009
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: But Oprah is in that demographic and at her high school,

1010
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 1: the black students, as a minority decided that they had

1011
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: to work together as a block if they were going

1012
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: to win any school elections. So they all agreed, decided

1013
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 1: to agree ahead of time as to which candidates to

1014
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 1: put forward, and so they'd only nominate a single black

1015
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 1: student for each category and then they would all vote

1016
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: for them. Since the white kids, white students all inevitably

1017
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: had like several white students for each role, and there's

1018
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 1: one black student for each role, and all of the

1019
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: black students are voting as a block, you actually have

1020
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: a chance of doing pretty well. So that's part of

1021
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: how Oprah wins election as school vice president that year.

1022
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: But she has to get a lot of white vote

1023
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: since she's very good at this. She's been hanging out

1024
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: at the homes of a lot of white classmates as

1025
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: a way for them to like make their parents look good.

1026
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: And yeah, Oprah, you know, is able to like meet

1027
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 1: a lot of people and get a lot of votes

1028
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 1: this way. She shows this like very clear talent for

1029
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:21,480
Speaker 1: politicking and talent for like charming people by this point.

1030
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 1: This is not lost on some of her black peers

1031
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:26,959
Speaker 1: who claimed that she they who she claimed had taken

1032
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: to calling her an oreo. The first time this happened,

1033
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 1: she crossed. The first time this happened, she claims she

1034
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 1: crossed the invisible lines in the cafeteria to sit with

1035
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: the white kids. Quote. In high school, I was the

1036
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: teacher's pet, which created other problems. I never spoke in dialect.

1037
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why. Perhaps I was ashamed and I

1038
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: was attacked for talking proper like white folks for selling out.

1039
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's interesting because like I don't have any

1040
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 1: reason to doubt that, but it's also evident, like she

1041
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: gets these nominations that everyone has to agree on beforehand,

1042
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,719
Speaker 1: so she clearly like it's not like she doesn't have,

1043
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 1: you know, any of that support from her peers either,

1044
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 1: because she's able to, like, you know, convince them she's

1045
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 1: the best person to be the school vice president too.

1046
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 2: Well, unless it's a calculated bid for electability when we

1047
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 2: all know how that comes.

1048
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, I see some echoes

1049
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 5: of some of our you know, we're talking about a

1050
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,800
Speaker 5: school election, but I see some echoes of our current situation.

1051
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,520
Speaker 1: Yeah's hard not.

1052
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 4: To read some parallels.

1053
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:30,799
Speaker 5: I mean, no, No, the thing about her, so I mean, like,

1054
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 5: first of all, if you are a black person listening,

1055
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:34,799
Speaker 5: every black person has been called an oreo at one

1056
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 5: point in their life.

1057
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 4: That is not a unique experience at all, take it

1058
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 4: from me.

1059
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 5: But it goes back to what I was saying of, Like,

1060
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,959
Speaker 5: is it possible that it wasn't that the other black

1061
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 5: kids didn't like her or like, because they clearly liked

1062
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 5: her because she was the person that they picked. Is

1063
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:51,800
Speaker 5: it possible that it wasn't about the way that she spoke.

1064
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,320
Speaker 5: Maybe she was being an asshole at times and didn't

1065
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 5: notice it, and like that's why.

1066
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 4: They were picking on her in this way.

1067
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 5: Like it's very easy to internalized this as, Oh, they

1068
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 5: were picking on me because I was smart and ambitious

1069
00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 5: and I was I smoke proper and got good grades.

1070
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, is that really what was going on?

1071
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some of it that, like you wanted to

1072
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 1: be a star, you would talk constantly about being famous,

1073
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: and you're you're probably like I mean, anyone who goes

1074
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 1: into TV, there's a little bit of that narcissism cooking

1075
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: in the background that may have been some of what

1076
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: people were recognizing. Yes, yeah, I say that with love

1077
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: for all of my friends in TV.

1078
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 4: You know, but like talking about how you're going to

1079
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:36,800
Speaker 4: go to Hollywood and be famous is annoying if your.

1080
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, Like, no one likes hearing that, you know,

1081
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:43,399
Speaker 1: like speaking as somebody who went to Hollywood to get

1082
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,720
Speaker 1: into the entertainment industry, right, nobody wants to hear about

1083
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: that journey. There's also just why we only have four

1084
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: to six Oscar winning movies every year about doing that.

1085
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 2: There's also like, like I mean obviously not okay to

1086
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 2: call someone in oreo or attack their blackness for quote

1087
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:06,399
Speaker 2: acting white, but also every kid was called something. I'm

1088
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 2: just like there's a little bit of like, you know,

1089
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 2: history is written by the winners, and the winner is

1090
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,120
Speaker 2: definitely Oprah as far as narrative goes.

1091
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:18,399
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, like I'm not saying it's a good

1092
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:19,319
Speaker 1: high school.

1093
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 2: But everyone, it's just it is also high school.

1094
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she is selected to be delegate

1095
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,320
Speaker 1: at the nineteen seventy one White House Conference on Children

1096
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: in Youth. The organizer of this delegation was committed to

1097
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: making sure that it was not just a bunch of

1098
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: middle class white kids, and so the resultant group that

1099
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: he sends to DC is like extremely diverse, and they

1100
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,800
Speaker 1: wind up voting on a series of recommendations to the

1101
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: Nixon government, which include legalized marijuana, denounce the invasion of Cambodia,

1102
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: launch a guaranteed income program for all Americans. Didn't work

1103
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:58,919
Speaker 1: if you haven't been keeping track of US politics, But hey,

1104
00:56:58,960 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: we appreciate the kids who are now in their seventies. Yeah,

1105
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 1: we don't really know how Oprah felt about any of

1106
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: these super progressive goals. She was not very political, As

1107
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: one classmate noted, she's not an activist, and the only

1108
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 1: march she ever took part in was the March of Dimes,

1109
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:18,920
Speaker 1: which is like a way of fundraising for I think

1110
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: cancer research that she primarily uses as a way to

1111
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: get her leg in the door for a show business career.

1112
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: She walks several miles on foot to the studios of WVOL,

1113
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 1: a black radio station in the Nashville area, and she

1114
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 1: basically tells the DJ, Hey, you're going to sponsor me

1115
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: for this march. The DJ is so surprised by this

1116
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: that he's like, well, all right, I'll do it. And

1117
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: when she comes by to get the donation from him,

1118
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: he tells her, hey, you've got a good voice. We

1119
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: should see what it sounds like on tape. And this guy,

1120
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 1: this DJ, is John Heidelberg. He would later declare himself

1121
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: the man who discovered Oprah. And it's one of those I.

1122
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 4: Really hate that shit.

1123
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 6: I really hate that shit.

1124
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 4: I really like that is like every.

1125
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,439
Speaker 6: Fucking like famous or powerful woman ever. It's the man

1126
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 6: who discovered her. Just that's all I need to know.

1127
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,840
Speaker 2: He sucks, right, I thought there'd be a little more

1128
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 2: producer solidarity here. So here's the thing.

1129
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that at all, Sophie. And I'm

1130
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: not saying you're wrong to be annoyed by that. I

1131
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:21,040
Speaker 1: was so in this guy's corner because when I hear, oh,

1132
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 1: young seventeen year old girl meets a DJ who says

1133
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 1: that maybe she has a future in an entertainment I

1134
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 1: was ready for this to be a hideous story. She's

1135
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:34,000
Speaker 1: never claimed it was. All she says about it, and

1136
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: all we know about it is that like John actually

1137
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:40,040
Speaker 1: gets her her first job, and that is like where

1138
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:41,640
Speaker 1: the whole rest of her career comes from.

1139
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 6: So it's entirely possible hate that narrative she got herself.

1140
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 4: I'm not saying you're wrong I hate.

1141
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 1: I'm just saying when I started reading this story, I

1142
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: was like white knuckling it, waiting for like the Crimes,

1143
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, having just done the p ditty episodes, I

1144
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:00,680
Speaker 1: was like, oh, God, this camp possibly and.

1145
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:06,960
Speaker 6: Well I'm the woman behind Robert Evans see it's discuss Yeah,

1146
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 6: definitely are like this.

1147
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 4: Did not enjoy that. Everyone was.

1148
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 6: I mean, the reality of the situation is that like

1149
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:17,479
Speaker 6: physically need to give myself a hug.

1150
00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:18,919
Speaker 4: It felt so uncomfortable.

1151
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 1: It's every successful person in media has a whole shitload

1152
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 1: of people who were like big parts of why they

1153
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: got successful. And you know, John Heidelberg is the only

1154
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: guy John John Heidelberg certainly knows how to market that said,

1155
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 1: I'm just so happy this didn't turn into another story

1156
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:39,240
Speaker 1: about like horrible, horrible crimes.

1157
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1158
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, gave him a.

1159
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 6: Bat DJ seventeen year old, you know, not literally a

1160
00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 6: good narrative.

1161
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 1: This is the most surprised I've been since we found

1162
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 1: out that l Ron Hubbard was never a sex criminal,

1163
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: where I was like, really, huh, okay, why did he

1164
00:59:56,520 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 1: do all that stuff? Weirder reasons, very weird reasons. He

1165
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 1: wanted young people to dig for gold in the ocean.

1166
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not a sexual like metaphor.

1167
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 2: Nope, he's like a StarCraft guy basically, yes.

1168
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 1: By which you mean a hero right, Yes, anyway, that's

1169
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: part two of the Oprah story with surprise, not a

1170
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 1: villain John Heidelberg, as far as I know, if horrible

1171
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 1: stories come out about John Heidelberg after this, look, I'm

1172
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:29,600
Speaker 1: not defending the bad I was just shocked that this

1173
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: didn't go into a dark place.

1174
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a weird twist.

1175
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, one, DJ, who is not a creep that we

1176
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: can prove right now?

1177
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 3: Yea.

1178
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 1: Honestly, you are in the top one scent of morality

1179
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: of moral DJs if you don't commit a sex crime.

1180
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 1: Like that's so rare for the DJ community.

1181
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 6: And I would like to formally apologize to our editor,

1182
01:00:56,240 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 6: DJ Danel for that comment.

1183
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, joic to John Heidelberg too, who I think is dead.

1184
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: I'm not going to okay, but ouch, poor John.

1185
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 6: I don't need to apologize to men.

1186
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 1: I'm good.

1187
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 2: I'm good. Uh.

1188
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's our episode. Everybody. How are we feeling about

1189
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 1: Oprah so far? Don't worry next week? Next week is set. Yeah,

1190
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 1: I didn't feel good like I.

1191
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:25,880
Speaker 2: Should.

1192
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: I have like summarized all of the bad things as

1193
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: bullet points. I felt like the whole story needed to

1194
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: be told.

1195
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remain curious to see how they connect because

1196
01:01:35,880 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 2: this this, if, if the bad stuff is kind of

1197
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 2: what I imagine it is, this would be the least

1198
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 2: the least like connective tissue between at X one and

1199
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 2: two and act you know, the late the B side, basically.

1200
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: The connective tissue, and this is to an extent. Stuff

1201
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 1: that Oprah will even admit is that she grows up

1202
01:01:56,120 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: desperate to please, and that that is partly responsible for

1203
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 1: like her number one set of the stuff, like some

1204
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:06,120
Speaker 1: of her contributions to toxic diet culture, but also maybe

1205
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: part of why she does not vet some of these

1206
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:11,400
Speaker 1: you know, doctors types the way that she ought to

1207
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 1: have write like, I think you can draw some lines

1208
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: there between like some of the aspects of her career

1209
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:24,040
Speaker 1: that are are not ideal. But yeah, uh, I gotta

1210
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: say reading through this this she it is definitely the

1211
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 1: most sympathetic person whose childhood we've talked about here.

1212
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you were talking about her like heyday and

1213
01:02:34,200 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 5: she was going to Hollywood and win speeches and elections,

1214
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 5: it was hard for me to not feel I was

1215
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 5: kind of like beaming thinking about in life. I was like, yeah,

1216
01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 5: like good, Like I'm imagining like a montage of her

1217
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 5: really leaving up, and I guess I'm waiting to see how.

1218
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:53,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess from that point of view, the

1219
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: good news is things don't ever go bad for Oprah, Like, yeah,

1220
01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: it's something tril Oprah go bad for the rest of us.

1221
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder.

1222
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:08,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, you get some pluggables.

1223
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 2: I could go. I think I went first last time.

1224
01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 5: Oh all right, Well you could check out my podcast

1225
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:20,320
Speaker 5: on iHeartRadio called There Are No Girls on the Internet,

1226
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 5: or my other podcast with the Mozilla Foundation makers of Firefox,

1227
01:03:24,680 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 5: all about power and people and ethics in a I

1228
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:30,120
Speaker 5: called I r L New season coming soon.

1229
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 4: Follow me on Instagram at bridget Marie and DC.

1230
01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:45,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, that's the week. Everybody go home. And I'm sorry, Andrew,

1231
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: I haven't slept in three days.

1232
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't worry about it, Andrew edred fucking new Gares.

1233
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 2: Yos this racist? That's fine?

1234
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: Check out yo? Is this racist? And remember everybody, don't

1235
01:03:56,920 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 1: don't hang out with DJs. It usually doesn't go.

1236
01:03:59,520 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 6: This well except accept DJ Daniel do your jo is

1237
01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 6: the best.

1238
01:04:03,520 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 4: And shout out to Joe. I love your DJ screw shirt.

1239
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 2: Oh thank you. This is a bootleg by probably don't

1240
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:14,520
Speaker 2: hang out with Djscrew either.

1241
01:04:20,440 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 6: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1242
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:26,800
Speaker 6: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1243
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 6: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1244
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,400
Speaker 6: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1245
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 6: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1246
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 6: and Friday.

1247
01:04:38,480 --> 01:04:39,200
Speaker 4: Subscribe to our

1248
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:42,920
Speaker 6: Channel YouTube dot com slash At Behind the Bastards