Blackmailing Oprah & Other Ridiculous Tales

I read an article from an internet news source in recent weeks about the arrest of a man who allegedly was trying to extort money from Oprah Winfrey by threatening the revelation of information gained from a former employee of Harpo, Inc. based in LA. The man had taped conversations with the former employee and a spokesman said he maintained that the information in the tapes would damage the career of the public figure referred to on the tapes, apparently Oprah.

The accused at his arrest maintained that it was all a misunderstanding. I haven’t seen any follow up press, but I have to express here my first reaction which was, “Get out a town!” Blackmail Oprah? Could anything be more ridiculous?

I am put in mind of the time over a decade ago when New Mexico mystery writer Tony Hillerman was awarded writer of the year by the Mountain and Plains Booksellers and as such was obliged to give the keynote address at the annual awards dinner. The room of curious writers and adoring readers crowding the ballroom of the historic LaFonda Hotel in Santa Fe, waited to hear how he had so consistently turned out book after successful book using what was everyday in the cultures of the modern west and the Navajo and Hopi peoples as place, time, setting.

Being the colorful eccentric that, as a successful writer, he has a right to be, Mr. Hillerman chose not to discuss his literary successes and failures, his muse, his style in his address. Instead he moved from his place at the celeb table at the front of the room to the microphone and revealed that he wasn’t going to give a speech but would be sharing some newspaper crime stories he thought amusing. Local ones at that, things we aspiring writers could have read in the Albuquerque Journal or the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Mr. Hillerman, probably bored to death with giving inspiring keynote addresses around New Mexico, couldn’t have done well with elaborate notes anyway in the semi darkness of the romantic old ballroom, and he’s not really noted as a charismatic public speaker anyway. Even so there was an audible gasp of surprise, followed by a sigh of disappointment from the table of writers and editors I sat with. Next to me the book reviewer for the local public radio station put her notebook back in her bag. Mr. Hillerman bumbled around with the mic, his glasses, his drink glass and some notes that may have been on napkins, in an endearing way for a few seconds, then opened a newspaper. There was an uncomfortable feeling in the room as he started to read a short article that at its end had the room rocking with laughter. He had our attention.

The article was one of those tiny bits on an inside page that most of us pass right over. This one may have described a thief who rode up to a drive-up teller on his bicycle and demanded money, mentioning menacingly that he had a gun. The teller ducked down behind her counter crawled into the bank and sent the security guard out to nab the guy and his bike while the police were in route. Another story, which he was reminded of by a note on the napkin, told of the misbegotten robbery of a vending machine in an all night laundry mat. The thief got away his fuzzy image on the security camera, but his not so fuzzy footprints in the snow led the police right to his front door. Hillerman at some points when delivering a vignette of the stupidity of those who would steal from others, was so amused he had to stop and sip a drink of something, which wasn’t clearly visible in the “semi-darkness of the romantic old ballroom.”

At the end of an hour, Hillerman had enjoyed himself immensely and most of the audience was suffering from side aches and shortness of breath associated with long bouts of laughter. The venerable writer did have a message for writers in the audience. The everyday and the overlooked, particularly in the newspaper, are wonderful sources of plot, setting and character for fiction. His other message not particularly for writers was “What are people thinking?”

I have to ask what could a would be extortionist be thinking if he targets Oprah with a blackmail scheme? How are you going to ruin the reputation of a woman who has put her every foible, shortcoming, demon and personal tragedy on national television daily for twenty-one years? Why would a woman, whose success has been based at least in part on that openness and in encouraging her audiences worldwide to address their most embarrassing and challenging problems, succumb to threats to reveal hearsay from a former employee? The accused incidentally, met the former employee at a LA cocktail party. Even we hicks no not to believe anything you hear at a cocktail party.

Oprah’s audiences know she is no saint. Those who may have been nursing that illusion surely got over it when she allowed herself to be filmed with Gayle on a road trip last summer, in which compared to Gayle, our dear Oprah, showed her whiney, spoilt side. She didn’t have to allow that to be broadcast. Obviously, who she is is who she is willing to present to the public. Whether you agree with her belief system or not, you must admire her courage in presenting herself honestly to the world and her generosity in encouraging others to heal and grow while doing the same.

Blackmailing Oprah? For intelligence factor, it ranks right there with robbing the Laundromat on foot on a dark but snowy night, doesn’t it?

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse