Celebs Out & About: Sandra Bullock, Oprah, Sean Penn
Adoptive mother Sandra Bullock should be commended for taking little Louis Bardo to the park. Most wealthy adoptive mothers let their nannies take the youngsters to the park so they don’t have to hear the shrieking and crying when it’s time to leave.
Oprah Winfrey, whose failing OWN Network is hemorrhaging money, held hands with actor Sean Penn at a refugee camp in Haiti earlier today. The talk show queen is in storm ravaged Haiti filming a TV special highlighting the humanitarian efforts by celebrities such as Sean Penn. His non-profit organization provides assistance to people displaced by the 2010 earthquake. Another narcissist who is in Haiti is Kim Kardashian. But it isn’t clear if Kim made it past the airport. We haven’t seen a single picture of her in Haiti. Hopefully, Oprah will have some footage of Kim getting hands on in Haiti, and if she really wants to score points, she will talk about how Wyclef Jean stole over $1 million in donations for his own benefit.
Photos: Splash News and INF PHOTO
Oprah Orders 10 More Episodes of ‘Welcome To Sweetie Pies’
According to media Guru, Jawn Murray, Oprah’s struggling OWN Network has ordered up 10 more episodes of its #1 rated show ‘Welcome To Sweetie Pies’.
According to STLToday.com, ‘Sweeties’ averages 388,000 viewers per episode, up 73 percent from a year earlier.
The show follows owner Robbie Montgomery — a former original back-up singer for Ike & Tina Turner — as she serves her mother’s soul food recipes at her popular St Louis-based “Sweetie Pie’s restaurant.
Miss Robbie, who at age 72 has never been married, was in Atlanta yesterday attending the 2011 Soul Train Awards with her family. Her oldest son, Tim, who helps run the business, told blogger Tami of Talkingwithtami.com that he was incarcerated for 10 years and turned his life around when he got out. Tim and his girlfriend, Jenae, have a son who was born prematurely during taping of the show [Thanks, iscream].
Oprah has ‘mixed feelings’ about Carson Kressley on ‘DWTS’
OWN Network founder Oprah Winfrey has “mixed feelings” about one of her hosts appearing on ABC’s ‘Dancing With The Stars’ this season, which begins next week.
According to the Huffington Post, Oprah is uncomfortable with Your OWN Show host Carson Kressley appearing on the dance show, because she is uncomfortable with reality TV shows in general.
“A few years ago, when she was doing her own show, she didn’t care for it at all,” a source told HuffPo.
“Manipulating people who are so desperate to be famous and making then look foolish on TV is just not something she is comfortable doing.”
But isn’t that what Oprah did on her own show? Didn’t she manipulate people who were desperate to be famous? Isn’t she desperate to remain relevant after ending the 25-year run of her wildly successful show on the advice of a dying kid?
Kressley, who gained fame as host of TV’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” will compete next week against notables such as NBA star Ron Artest, former talk show host Ricki Lake and transgender Chaz Bono.
‘Oprah’ will be back on network TV by the end of the year
A source tells Popeater.com that Oprah Winfrey will revive her show on her OWN network before the year is out.
Oprah ended her 25-year run on May 25th with an extravagant, overblown 3-day sendoff that would have made Jesus blush.
Before the final two episodes were even taped, Harpo Productions, Oprah’s company, announced that Oprah’s final guest would be “the biggest star in the world” — prompting many in the media to try and guess who the biggest star could be since both Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor were dead.
As it turns out, Oprah was her own final guest, meaning she is the biggest star in the world. At least in her own mind, Oprah believed that no other star was big enough to share the stage with her.
And to drive the point home, Harpo photoshopped Opah’s final photo (shown above) 5 shades lighter, giving her an otherworldly glow, not unlike that of an angel who is too perfect for this world.
“I won’t say goodbye. I’ll just say, Until we meet again,” she tearfully told her audience, which was made up of people who had never been in her audience before.
“She is going to dedicate herself to her new network and do whatever needs to be done to make sure it’s a huge hit,” a co-worker of Oprah’s told Popeater.com. “If this means bringing her own show back to life on her network then she will. I can’t imagine that she won’t be back on the air before the end of the year.”
Phil Donahue was (and will always be) my favorite daytime TV host ever. He ended his long daytime television run with one respectfully understated episode.
It took Oprah three star-studded, over the top, overhyped shows to say goodbye – and she she won’t even be gone that long. Like a drug addict, no narcissist can stay away from their steady source of supply.
Oprah’s Subtle and Poignant Final Show
There were few dry eyes in the house (or at home) when Oprah Winfrey bid farewell to millions of viewers during her final show, which aired yesterday. There were no stars jockeying for position next to her onstage. Just Oprah alone in front of a select audience with her thoughts and memories of the last 25 years of the most influential daytime TV talk show in history.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” ended its storied run on May 25, after 25 years, and millions of her fans gathered in homes and lounges around America to watch the final show.
Oprah acknowledged that she owes much of the success of her show to her loyal viewers who kept her at the top of the ratings heap consistently.
“You and this show have been the great love of my life,” she told the lucky audience near the end of the episode.
Later, she talked about the transformation the show took from featuring “people making bad choices” to the lifestyle and star-studded format it became.
Oprah talked about one of her biggest regrets — taking her production staff to Forsyth County, Georgia to “confront racism”, when in fact she was confronting her own insecurities in her bid to attract worldwide attention. The response to that show was immediate and devastating as blacks abandoned Oprah in droves.
“What is all life? What is every flower, every rock, every tree, every human being? Energy. And you’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others,” she said.
Towards the end of the hour, Oprah says ending her legendary talk show is “all sweet, no bitter” and that she nothing but gratitude for the time she spent with us.
“I thank you for being as much of a sweet inspiration for me as I’ve tried to be for you,” she said. “I won’t say goodbye. I’ll just say, Until we meet again. To God be the glory.”
Has the “Oprah Effect” Negatively Impacted America?
Sara Stewart of the NY Post has an excellent brief summary of Oprah Winfrey’s past 25 years as one of the most influential TV talk show moguls in history.
There is no doubt that the so-called “Oprah Effect” has shaped the consciousness of many and influenced popular culture. But as Stewart points out, “occasionally, that influence has backfired.”
The “Oprah effect” has shaped our national consciousness in profound ways. “There are a lot of people whose lives are better, thanks to what she’s done,” says Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “Her whole message of empowerment is the idea that you can change your circumstances.”
Occasionally, however, that influence has seriously misfired.
“Oprah has mainstreamed a lot of very questionable characters in my opinion,” anti-cult therapist Steven Hassan has said, pointing to Oprah acolyte James Arthur Ray whose infamous sweat lodge led to the deaths of three people in 2009.
The megalithic TV host and producer has also arguably helped to foster an unprecedented level of national narcisissm, and a mass susceptibility to snake-oil salesmen disguised as self-improvement gurus. She’s given a national platform to controversial topics, such as the “link” between childhood vaccines and autism, which have had ramifications far beyond the Nielsen ratings.
As Stewart notes: “No single American personality in recent years has influenced our culture as pervasively as Oprah Winfrey.
But Oprah’s celebration of mediocrity, her lack of true insight into her own failings, and her inability to see past the tip of her grandiose nose will forever mark her as one of the biggest narcissists in the history of television.
Source: NYP
Oprah Fired Me For Talking About Jesus
In addition to being a tenured professor at Mississippi Valley State, Oprah Winfrey’s first cousin, Jo Baldwin, is also an ordained minister who preaches at two churches every Sunday.
Oprah knew that Ms. Baldwin was a deeply religious woman when she hired her to be her speechwriter shortly after the enormously popular Oprah Winfrey Show debuted. Later she promoted Baldwin to VP of her company Harpo Inc, according to Gawker.com.
“When I received my PhD in 1985 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Oprah asked me where I was going to work,” said Jo Baldwin in the summer of 2010. “I said I would be applying for a position at Ebony magazine as a copy editor. Oprah said she did not like Linda Johnson Rice [owner of Ebony] and I should come to work for her instead. So I did.”
“I was to work for her for three years, but she fired me without notice after two years… I heard from someone later that she got rid of me because she got tired of me talking about Jesus all the time… Oprah preferred the teachings of Shirley MacLaine’s books, such as Dancing in the Light and Out on a Limb, which Oprah made me read but I didn’t think much of.”
