SOUNDBITES — “Stedman is probably gay or neutral, but they have a bond. … Her being gay would be the right reaction to the sexual abuse she says she’s suffered and the mistrust she’s always had of me.” —Erica Jong, the writer, and Oprah‘s so-called “longtime friend,” opining on the billionaire’s relationships in Kitty Kelley’s new unauthorized biography, which also claims Oprah gave birth to a baby at age 15, which died a month later (via)
erica jong
Oprah ‘being gay would be the right reaction to the sexual abuse she says she’s suffered’
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Brandon H
I dunno, I tend to believe oprah and gayle when they say if they were gay they would tell us.
She just doesn’t strike me as the kind of person that would go this far to hide it if it were true. With the way tabloids are I guess we’ll never know for sure unless she comes out and explicitly says she’s a big ol’ lez.
Thats just my personal opinion though.
ron
I think Oprah is asexual.
soso
oprah’s gay rumors make me wonder if people even watch her show or even know what she is about. she has told SO MUCH about her childhood, how she was raped, and molested and you then feel she would lie about her sexuality? really?
if she is gay, so be it. but she doesn’t strike me as the type to lie, when she’s had some pretty gay friendly topics on her show.
BK
The “right reaction?” Gay doesn’t happen to you, you’re born that way. You don’t “turn gay” from child abuse. What a crock.
OrchidIslander
What the what Queerty?
Sometimes, actually a lot of the time, the license you take with journalism is mind blowing (and not in the good way)!
Your headline “hook” takes a quote from someone else and makes it sound as if Oprah is being quoted:
Oprah ‘being gay would be the right reaction to the sexual abuse she says she’s suffered’
Pretty crafty, and kudos for using apostrophes instead of quotation marks.
Unfortunately, Fox News called and it wants its “Fair and Balanced” back…..
plz
Oprah carefully controls her image. She would NEVER willingly out herself.
j
@OrchidIslander: This. I didn’t have a clue what was goin’ on when I started readin’ this article.
Jane Laplain
How does the book “claim” Oprah had a baby at 15 that died when she herself has talked openly about having a baby that died when she was 15? Why is Queerty trying to stir up tabloid trouble? Why are you trying to be the Gay Inquirer? Stop it.
christopher di spirito
I think when you’re as wealthy and as powerful as Mama O, it is next to impossible to find people to be friends with and whom you can trust who don’t want something from you. Like a car, a house or a book deal or TV show.
Apparently, Mama O found a friend in Gayle. Whether or not they’re more than “friends,” I don’t know. It is interesting to me that as soon as Gayle entered Mama O’s inner sanctum, she up and divorced her husband to take her position at Mama O’s side.
None the less, I can’t wait to read Kitty Litter’s book about Mama O. It’s a perfect summer read. I hope Kitty takes on Rush Limbaugh next and exposes all the dirty on him. Like his taste for Dominican Republic rent boys.
Cam
I figure there probably is something between Oprah and Gayle, only having one major best friend, for years and years, showing up to events with her and not with her “Boyfriend”, never having any trouble, or good times with her “Boyfriend” never traveling with him alone etc… So yeah, I think that she is probably a lesbian, or at a minimum isn’t overly interested in men. I don’t really care as much, because unlike what Rosie O’Donnell used to so, Oprah isn’t screaming at people every day going “I LOVE TOM CRUISE! I”M STRAIGHT!” etc… If Oprah is gay then, she is wealthy enough and old enough to get her cowardly ass out of the closet. If she isn’t gay, then hey Oprah, get yourself a boyfriend that you actually like being around!
As for Gayle, heck, Oprah could do worse, seems like a nice person, funny, etc…
Scottie
For god’s sake, can we let go this notion about Gayle and Oprah being lesbian lovers? It’s so ridiculous that we always try to make famous people into gay people. Can’t people be just close friends and be gay friendly without being gay lovers? Get over it already and leave them alone.
Cam
No. 9 · Scottie
For god’s sake, can we let go this notion about Gayle and Oprah being lesbian lovers? It’s so ridiculous that we always try to make famous people into gay people. Can’t people be just close friends and be gay friendly without being gay lovers? Get over it already and leave them alone.
__________________________
Yeah, because so many of the Famous people we “Tried to make” gay were actually hetrosexual and we were wrong about them…
People like
Rosie O’Donnell
Neil PAtric Harris
Clay Aiken
Ricky Martin
Ellen DeGenerous
Anderson Cooper
Jodie Foster
Etc…
did it ever occure to you that gay people don’t go around saying “EVERYBODY is Gay!” Nobody is going around saying that Jessica Alba, Merryl Streep, Robert DiNiro, Robert Pattinson, Rachel MacAdams etc… are gay.
What we do see however, is when something doesn’t quite ring true, and when we spot that, we’ll comment on it. Ricky Martin’s people tried to bring out an “Ex Girlfriend” to say how they had dated for a long time and he was so great in bed. Well people pointed out that they had never had pictures together…ever. So, was that the gay community “Trying to MAke” Ricky Martin gay, or just pointing out an obvious inconsistency?
OusslanDer
@christopher di spirito: Whats dirty about dominican rent boys?they’re great. The next best thing to brazilians!
drewbrown
@OrchidIslander: Actually, Queerty’s headline writing was just fine on this one. If they had written “Oprah: ‘being gay…'” (note the colon after Oprah) then that would imply the quote was coming from Oprah. But the way they wrote it, “Oprah ‘being gay…'” is correct. Oprah is the subject of the quote.
RS
Knowing Kitty Kelley (I studied up on her once, as I was playing her in drag at a murder mystery I wrote), I wouldn’t be surprised if the Erica Jong quote is entirely made up.
jeffree
I’m not a huge fan of O and her show, because she brings every conversation back to herself *BUT* putting that aside, her willingness to discuss LGBT issues during daytime TV still makes her a hero. She has been open about her drug use, molestation, “motherhood” and weight issues. Whether she & Gayle are or have been lovers is just speculation. Neither woman has anything to lose if they shared that detail –if it were true.
Kitty Kelly’s lack of “fact checking” and playing for headlines are well known.
And, most importantly, sexual abuse does NOT cause gayness. That’s a line straight out of “reparative therapists” and the ex-gay movement.
Cut Oprah some slack! Just watching O’s shows on teh gayz made my Dominican aunt stand up for me after I came out. She’s now one of those pflaggers who marches in parades holding a sign!
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
@jeffree:
It’d make her asexual.
But women are different from men.
I’ve worked with a lot of ex female hookers who ended up in female relationships because they hated men so much but were desperate for some kind of relationship.
I think that is what O has with Gayle. I don’t think it’s sexual.
McShane
No. 3 · BK: you are nearly rght on: Teh premise that Being gay has a relationship to child sexual abuse(one way or the other ) is just idiotic. There may be a lot of ramifications to child abuse but being gay is not one of them.
McShane
No. 15 · John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s) “But women are different from men.” Simone DeBouvoire contested that women, in a different way than men were apt to respond to anyone that pressed the right buttons, so are completely bisexual .
ewe
Jong is an idiot. Does anyone take her seriously. So how about all the straight people who were abused. Is that their result? What a attention grabbing quack.
Jerr Bear
So, my boyfriend doesn’t go to award shows even when he IS invited unless he is nominated for something. My best friend for the last 15 years is female… does that make me straight, because not I’m gonna need some help understanding myself again.
Seriously, just leave her sex out of it. I agree with those that have said she would just come out. She would have, likely on a joint show with Ellen.