Kitty Kelley Takes on Oprah

Posted on December 14, 2006

Much-despised biographer of the stars Kitty Kelley is planning on turning her acid pen on Oprah Winfrey. Kelley is writing a tell-all biography of the media maven.

Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House, said on Wednesday it will publish the upcoming biography of Winfrey by Kelley, who has already tackled the Bush family, the British royals, Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra and has been credited with inventing the unauthorized, unflattering biography.

"Oprah Winfrey has fascinated me for many years," Kelley said in a statement. "As a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche. There has been no other person in the 20th century whose convictions and values have impacted the American public in such a significant way."

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In her biography of Nancy Reagan, she famously wrote that the first lady had long private "lunches" with Sinatra in her private quarters, using the quotation marks around the word lunches to emphasize her innuendo. In her book on Sinatra, she portrayed the beloved actor and singer as a violent misogynist who fraternized with mobsters. In 2004's "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," she wrote that President George W. Bush had snorted cocaine at Camp David while his father was president.

That assertion was credited to Sharon Bush -- the former wife of the president's brother Neil -- who subsequently denied sharing those juicy details with Kelley. Critics have accused her of stretching the truth and engaging in tabloid journalism. Online magazine Slate called her the "colonoscopist to the stars."

The "colonoscopist to the stars"? That's quite a title. Anything about Oprah will sell, but Kitty may have met her match in Ms. Winfrey. If anything in the book is untrue, expect the hordes of lawyers to descend upon Crown Books. And we wouldn't expect Oprah to be selecting too many books from Crown to be featured on her show in the future.

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