Part One: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard?

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard?

Podcast Information:

• Title: Behind the Bastards
• Host/Author: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: Part One: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard?
• Release Date: January 14, 2025

Hosts and Guests:

• Hosts: Robert Evans and Garrison Keillor
• Guests: Bridget Todd (Host of There Are No Girls on the Internet) and Andrew Ti (Host of Yo, Is This Racist?)

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Introduction to the Episode

Behind the Bastards delves deep into the life and influence of one of America's most iconic figures, Oprah Winfrey. Hosted by Robert Evans and Garrison Keillor, this episode challenges the commonly held perceptions of Oprah, exploring both her contributions and the more controversial aspects of her legacy.

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Oprah's Cultural Impact and Influence

The hosts begin by highlighting Oprah's monumental influence on American culture and media. They discuss how Oprah has been instrumental in catapulting other media personalities like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz into the limelight, acknowledging the significant societal impact these figures have had.

Key Points:

• Oprah's role in promoting influential yet controversial figures.
• Examination of Oprah's connection to various societal phenomena, such as the satanic panic and myths like rainbow parties.

Notable Quote: Garrison Keillor (14:09):

"No one human being alive has had more of an impact on how Americans talk about dieting and weight loss than Oprah Winfrey."

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Personal Histories with Oprah

Bridget Todd shares her personal experiences with Oprah, including a memorable moment from Bridget’s fifth-grade book report where she had to emulate Oprah. Robert Evans echoes similar childhood interactions, emphasizing the pervasive presence of Oprah in their early lives.

Key Points:

• Oprah's widespread influence across diverse cultural and political boundaries.
• Personal anecdotes illustrating Oprah's omnipresence during the hosts' upbringing.

Notable Quote: Bridget Todd (04:18):

"It's only been recently that I have really had to have my come to Jesus moment of some of the bad actors, charlatans, hucksters and just like bastards that she has made famous."

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Oprah's Childhood: Fact vs. Myth

A significant portion of the episode focuses on dissecting Oprah's narratives about her early life. The discussion delves into her book What Happened to You co-authored with Dr. Bruce Perry, where Oprah attributes her later struggles and successes to childhood trauma.

Key Points:

• Oprah's Account: Describes a traumatic childhood marked by abuse and loneliness, contributing to her people-pleasing nature and success in media.
• Family Contradictions: Family members, particularly Aunt Catherine, challenge Oprah's portrayal, suggesting she exaggerated or misrepresented her early years.
• Myth Making: Exploration of how Oprah's storytelling may blend truth with embellishment to create a compelling personal narrative.

Notable Quotes:

• Oprah Winfrey (12:15):

  "From what I can read, and maybe I'm missing something here, not being a Bible scholar, it feels like her aunt picking Orpah as a name might have been her throwing shade at the baby."

• Aunt Catherine (as relayed by hosts):

  "Oprah makes her first six years sound like the worst thing that ever befell a child born to folks just trying to survive."

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The Wagon of Fat Incident

A pivotal moment discussed is the infamous "wagon of fat incident" from 1998, where Oprah dramatically showcased her weight loss by carrying a wagon filled with 67 pounds of fat. This event is analyzed for its cultural significance and its role in perpetuating diet culture.

Key Points:

• Cultural Impact: How the incident symbolized and influenced American attitudes towards dieting and body image.
• Oprah's Regret: Oprah later expressed regret over this stunt, recognizing its negative implications on diet culture.

Notable Quote: Garrison Keillor (13:47):

"This represents the intersection of a couple of very complicated things we're going to have to dissect in these episodes."

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Analysis of Oprah's Authenticity and Image Crafting

The hosts discuss the duality of Oprah's image as both a genuine advocate for trauma and a strategic image crafter. They explore how her authenticity has been both a strength and a point of contention.

Key Points:

• Vulnerability as a Tool: Oprah's ability to connect through sharing personal trauma.
• Image Crafting: Deliberate shaping of her persona to maintain relatability and influence.
• Contradictions: Balancing genuine advocacy with potential manipulation of personal narratives for public appeal.

Notable Quote: Garrison Keillor (21:03):

"Oprah has a gift for self-dramatization, which her family accuses her of exaggerating to gain sympathy and widen her audience."

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Family's Perspective on Oprah's Storytelling

Bridget Todd and Andrew Ti present contrasting viewpoints from family members who assert that Oprah has embellished her childhood experiences. The conversation touches on the challenges of verifying personal histories and the impact of familial relationships on narrative accuracy.

Key Points:

• Conflicting Accounts: Family members claim Oprah romanticizes or distorts her past.
• Impact of Success: Speculation that Oprah's fame and wealth may contribute to familial resentment and attempts to downplay her positive upbringing.
• Memory and Perception: Acknowledgment of the fallibility of childhood memory and personal perception shaping narratives.

Notable Quote: Andrew Ti (27:22):

"Sometimes, it's like, you can't help think to a little bit like, did she make that up? Or add to that in order to have something that was relevant to the story of a shooting from her own life."

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Oprah's Continued Influence and Legacy

The episode concludes by reflecting on Oprah's lasting legacy, emphasizing that regardless of the controversies surrounding her personal history, her influence on American media and culture remains unparalleled.

Key Points:

• Unmatched Influence: Oprah's unique position as a media mogul with extensive cultural reach.
• Complex Legacy: Balancing her philanthropic efforts and advocacy with the criticisms of her role in promoting questionable figures and perpetuating certain cultural issues.
• Future Impact: Speculation on Oprah's continued influence and the lasting effects of her media empire.

Notable Quote: Robert Evans (70:42):

"So, yeah, I don't know. But Oprah does genuinely care about child abuse. It's something she has devoted a lot of her life to trying to fight."

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Conclusion

Behind the Bastards presents a nuanced examination of Oprah Winfrey, acknowledging her significant contributions to media and society while critically assessing the complexities and controversies of her personal narrative. Through engaging dialogue and insightful analysis, the episode invites listeners to reconsider their perceptions of one of America's most influential figures.

Final Thoughts:

• Oprah's story is a blend of genuine struggle and strategic image crafting.
• The discrepancies between her accounts and family testimonies highlight the challenges of objective storytelling.
• Her unparalleled influence makes her a compelling subject for both admiration and scrutiny.

Notable Quote: Robert Evans (84:17):

"An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow. Did you kill her? Listen to the real Killer Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts."

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Disclaimer: This summary is based on a fictional transcript provided for illustrative purposes and reflects the discussions and viewpoints presented within the episode.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media.

[Garrison Keillor]

I watched a man vomit in a casino pit last night. It was beautiful. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast that's this week hosted from sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. We've got a real special one for you. This week we've got an episode about somebody who embodies everything that is meaningful about, like, where we are in America today. Like, both our complete divorce as a culture from any sort of shared truth, our acceptance of all sorts of, like, weird, unhinged metaphysical realities. The guy who's probably going to be running Medicaid in the near future. We all owe them to our topic this week. Our subject this week, someone you all have heard of, Oprah Winfrey. And because Oprah is such a big topic and honestly, kind of a scary person to go after, this might be the most powerful bastard we've talked about. I brought in some very special guests. First off, let's say a warm welcome to the great Bridget Todd. Bridget, welcome to the show.

[Bridget Todd]

I want to say it like Oprah does. Thank you for having me. You know how she has that thing.

[Robert Evans]

I just knew. I just knew you were the right person for this job.

[Bridget Todd]

I'm so excited. Y'all don't even know Bridget.

[Garrison Keillor]

I do.

[Robert Evans]

I was gonna say Bridget is the host of There Are no Girls on the Internet, and.

[Garrison Keillor]

That's right.

[Robert Evans]

And also just one of my favorite people in the entire world.

[Garrison Keillor]

That's right. That's right.

[Robert Evans]

She is here. And we are so lucky. Who is our second guest today? Because we couldn't have just one for Oprah.

[Garrison Keillor]

No, no, no. For Oprah. You gotta bring out that. You gotta have a double barrel, you know, if you're going for a grizzly bear. And our second round of buckshot this week is Andrew T.

[Robert Evans]

Thanks for being here, Andrew. Andrew is the host of Yo, Is this Racist?

[Garrison Keillor]

That's right. What's up?

[Andrew Ti]

How's it going?

[Garrison Keillor]

We're going to need to ask that a lot in these episodes, and the answer is always going to be yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

Oh, boy.

[Garrison Keillor]

There's a lot of stuff to discuss there.

[Robert Evans]

Robert and I have been talking about doing the Oprah episodes for. For what feels like a year. And the subject of, like, who do we have on for this? Like, how, like, guess. Who do we have on? What do we do? Because, like, no matter what, like, I mean, I. I read Oprah's bio in, like, middle school, and, like, she comes off with her, like, origin story as, like, heroic.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

She's deeply sympathetic in many ways. And these first two episodes are going you're going to be sympathetic to her more often than not because we are covering a lot of her childhood, the things that she does that are awful. And the reason why she deserves to be on this show is not because she's personally odious. Right. In her personal interactions. Usually I've run into a bunch of Reddits where people who worked on the show talk. And more often than not, people who worked on the Oprah Winfrey show say, we were paid well. It was a reasonably good gig. You can certainly find people being like, yeah, she was a dick to me when I was a barista or whatever. There's stories like that, but I wouldn't hang an episode on it. It's more her level influence is so Titanic and the things that she has chosen, she's chosen to push a number of people who are, we have done two part episodes on in the past. Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, both owe their careers and the intense amounts of damage that they've done to society to Oprah Winfrey. Neither of those guys are on anyone's radar. If it's not for Oprah Winfrey. John of God, that Brazilian mystic who raped and molested thousands of people, owes a huge amount of her career in prominence to Oprah Winfrey. There's a number of cases like that. She's tied in massively with the satanic panic. She's tied in massively with a number of different like myths, like we're going to talk about like rainbow parties and the like. So we've got a lot of fun stuff today. I do want to start by asking Bridget Andrew, what are Yalls histories with Oprah?

[Robert Evans]

Oh, it's a good question.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, I mean, I have to say I'm really glad that you framed the Oprah conversation the way that you did because I almost have like a love hate with Oprah.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, you can't.

[Bridget Todd]

First of all, you can't be a black woman and not have some deep admiration for Oprah. And I would say it's only been recently that I have really had to have my come to Jesus moment of some of the bad actors, charlatans, hucksters and just like bastards that she has made famous and now are sort of stuck with. So it's sort of a love hate Oprah thing. I did a report on her when I was in fifth grade where I had to dress like her.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, you're weirdly enough, not the only friend of mine who did a report on Oprah when they were in school. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

I think there's like an element of, like, it's a little bit like Obama, where you're like, it's good that there's a different type of, like, a black person being able to achieve the highest ranks of whatever.

[Garrison Keillor]

The wealthiest. She's the wealthiest person in media, period. Like, wealthiest, purely media star, 2 billion, something like that nowadays.

[Andrew Ti]

But there's also, like, some version of, like, having to. So you're, like, kind of grading on a curve. It's like, for a billionaire, she's probably pretty good, you know, relatively speaking. I mean, but she has, you know, she has all the trap. It's the same with Obama where you're like, every president has committed crimes against humanity. That's just the job. But, like, so for a while, you're like, it's sort of nice that he's like, you know, he is who he is. But then you're like, I just wish you weren't doing all these terrible things.

[Garrison Keillor]

As we'll talk about one of the complicated things about Oprah, there's a bunch of stuff that really is very sinister about her impact. And then whenever you're reading the books and stuff, the critical bios of her, the things they choose to go after her for are always like, well, actually, I don't think she did anything wrong there. Like, there's a lot of very weird. She has also had to. You can't talk about the things she's done bad without also defending her because she has come under fire for so many insanely unreasonable things as well.

[Robert Evans]

I also did an Oprah book report probably in the fifth grade. And, you know, she was on my television for my. My. My mom watched a lot of Oprah. There was a lot of Oprah in my household growing up. And then, like, a few years ago, I was working on a project with Jamie Loftus, and we went back and we were looking for, like, a specific Oprah episode to reference in something. And just the show episode titles were so triggering.

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And then.

[Garrison Keillor]

And it's.

[Robert Evans]

And then Robert and Bridget, you were both at. You were both at the DNC in Chicago, but I don't think you guys were both there for Oprah's speech, were you?

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh, I was out at one of the.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, you were there for Palestine protests.

[Bridget Todd]

I was in the audience. I remember it very well.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I. I was there for that. And it was like the most like. Like, detached, I felt from an audience in my life. I was like. I was like, oh, no.

[Bridget Todd]

Also, Sophie, do you remember? I feel like she got. I completely agree with you about the tenor and the vibe of the speech. However, maybe it was just my section. I feel like people were losing their fudgeing minds. When she came out and started talking, like, yeah, I was like, are we hearing the same speech? Like, it truly. I had a very.

[Robert Evans]

Like, I'm saying that's why, that's why I was like. I was, I was like. I was like, really? We're still. We're still. But then again, there were several people that I was like, oh, these are known horrible humans and people are going feral for them as well. But yeah, Oprah, Oprah. Cheers.

[Garrison Keillor]

Were she's. I mean, it's hard to get across. Cause there's really no one on earth like this. How cross. At least for a certain kind of. For a certain like category of person. Particularly like middle aged moms from the 90s through the aughts. It's amazing the degree to which Oprah completely cut across like political and cultural boundaries. You know, like, my mom was a very conservative white lady in Texas. Loved Oprah. Oprah was always on. And like, that was the case with every mom that I knew as a kid. Oprah was just like an institution, you know, like, it's really. And I don't think she's even quite like that today just because, like, things have gotten considerably more fragmented in the media ecosystem. And so one of the things that's interesting about her is like, when we talk about her influence, there probably won't ever be a single person that influential again in the same way.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Bridget at the dnc, when she came out, were you sitting or standing?

[Bridget Todd]

I wish I could say that I like turned my back. You know, I gave her a standing ovation even after all my like, big talk.

[Garrison Keillor]

But it's. Exactly.

[Robert Evans]

But you. Were you in the standing section or the sitting section?

[Bridget Todd]

I was in the seated section. I was.

[Robert Evans]

So here's my question. When she came out, did you immediately look under your chair? Like, yes, like, like Oprah, did you leave me?

[Bridget Todd]

You don't get a car.

[Robert Evans]

I wish Oprah came out and instinctively was like, is there a gift? There was not.

[Bridget Todd]

Honestly though, if anybody could arrange that, it would be Oprah.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Garrison Keillor]

I should let you know I've bought you both cars. They're not. They're not. They're geoprisms. They are not. Like, these are really like burdens for both of you.

[Andrew Ti]

Robert's clearing his books. It's really just like a tax deferral.

[Garrison Keillor]

I got a lot of geos to offload. I'm underwater on a deal.

[Jon Stewart]

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[Jason Alexander]

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the really no really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum a failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead the really no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danny Trejo]

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Treheals and step into the Flames of Fright, an anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Garrison Keillor]

He was a boy scout leader, a husband, a father, but he was leading a double life. He was a monster hiding in plain sight journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It was big news. I mean white girl gets murdered, found in a cemetery. Big, big news.

[Robert Evans]

A long investigation stalls until someone changes their story.

[Bridget Todd]

I like saw whole thing that happened.

[Robert Evans]

An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow.

[Bridget Todd]

He did not kill her.

[Robert Evans]

There's no way is the Real Killer right bars or still walking free. Did you kill her? Listen to The Real Killer Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Garrison Keillor]

In the spring of 2024, Oprah Winfrey participated in a three hour special sponsored by Weight Watchers called Making the Shift. Alongside several other celebrity panelists. She talked about the failures and shortcomings of America's toxic diet culture and took some degree of ownership for her role in perpet calling herself a major contributor and saying I've been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight loss shows and makeovers I've done, and they have been a staple since I've been working in television. And even this statement, which is fairly unequivocal, underplays the reality of the situation, because it's probably accurate to say that no one human being alive has had more of an impact on how Americans talk about dieting and weight loss than Oprah Winfrey. For the entirety of the time that everyone on this call has been alive, she has been the most public face of diet culture, and tens of thousands of Americans followed along as she gained and lost weight in the public eye. One of the biggest regrets of her career came in 1998 as a result of this. And I'm talking about the famous wagon of fat incident, which was precisely what it sounds like. Winfrey launched a new season of her hit daytime talk show by pulling out a red wagon filled with 67 pounds of fat, which is how much she'd lost on her most recent diet. And because this is kind of what Oprah says is, in her view, the lowest moment of her career, I do want to start with playing a clip from this because it represents the intersection of a couple of very complicated things we're going to have to dissect in these episodes. Okay.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, my God. Now, let me tell you.

[Garrison Keillor]

I lost.

[Bridget Todd]

I have lost, as of this morning. As of this morning, 67 pounds since July 7, 67 pounds and 30 inches.

[Garrison Keillor]

From my bust, my waist and my hips.

[Bridget Todd]

7, 12, 11, I think it is.

[Garrison Keillor]

And this, let me tell you, those.

[Bridget Todd]

Of you who are starting dieting or.

[Garrison Keillor]

Dieting a little bit, this is what.

[Bridget Todd]

67 pounds of fat looks like. I can't.

[Garrison Keillor]

I can't lift it.

[Bridget Todd]

Now, when you talk about Jimmy, is.

[Garrison Keillor]

This gross or what? Okay, I think that's enough.

[Bridget Todd]

But I used to carry it around.

[Garrison Keillor]

She's definitely lifting it.

[Andrew Ti]

The Radio Flyer people, do you think they were, like, got in there?

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, God. I remember that clip like it was yesterday when you. As soon as you set it up, I closed my eyes, and I can, like, I remember it crystal clear. Like, what a moment in culture.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. And she does look great in that video. No one can deny that. And it's interesting to me, first off, that this is such, like, a. Especially in, like, the critical reading on Oprah, this is such, like, an epochal moment. Right. Like, how toxic this was, what a bad moment this was in terms of, like, inculcating toxic attitudes in American culture vis a vis weight loss and how, like, tame it seems, honestly, in a lot of ways considering, like, where we are now, just in general with like the tv, how much, like, worse shit there is every single day. But it's also interesting because, like, this is an easy moment to hang on as toxic. I actually don't. I have trouble blaming Oprah for the, for this, even though she's definitely contributing to some really ugly aspects of diet culture. As we'll talk about, the way she gets attacked and like focused on in the media over her weight is probably unique. Like, I don't know that anyone else has been kind of anyone else's personal weight has been obsessed over to the same degree that Oprah's has. It certainly was in the late 90s. So yeah, as we'll talk about, I don't see this as like a low point for her, but this is probably what she would name as like the absolute worst thing in her career.

[Andrew Ti]

Wait, and maybe I'm missing something. So. And she would, she would say that or she has said that because it's just like a crass stunt.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's crass. And she has started to talk about the degree to which she thinks that diet culture and the, our obsession with fat and weight loss is unhealthy and that she was a big part of that. Right. Like, she started talking about that now. She started talking about that in participation with Weight Watchers. So I don't know. I don't know how much credit you want to give her. Right.

[Bridget Todd]

Like, clearly done in good faith.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, maybe not totally done in good. Maybe more of just a pivot. That's.

[Andrew Ti]

I will just say, as someone who is like a little more outside of the Oprah sphere, I think compared to everyone else here, I feel like I didn't particularly perceive, like, I hear what you're saying about like, she was like one of the faces of. But it was so pervasive everywhere not to like completely let her off the hook, but it is a little just like that's what you did when you were like, especially marketing to middle aged women.

[Garrison Keillor]

But it's like, it's partly what you did because Oprah was so successful at it. Like, she, like, it's a road that was there because she bushwhacked it, you know?

[Andrew Ti]

Right, right, right.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah. I actually have a similar take. I think that why she regrets this is not because of like participating in this harmful toxic diet culture, yada, yada, yada, which she was. I think it was sort of throwing red meat to the people, Robert, that you were just describing who obsess about her weight. Personally, I think that it's probably a low point because she was engaging in this, like, highly personal public conversation about her weight and, like, playing into that. I don't, I would probably, I don't know that she was, would say, like, oh, I shouldn't have been participating in diet culture writ large.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's, that might be a fair critique, but we'll talk about it. But first, for these couple of episodes, we're gonna really be getting into, like, the parts of Oprah's career that are mostly, or life that are mostly like, a lot more empathetic. Although, you know, there's some darkness there, too, mainly in, like, the way in which she has kind of lied and judged up some aspects of her background because it makes a better story. Yeah. This will all be interesting to talk about. So in 2021, one of my sources for this is a book that Oprah released about trauma, much of which she discussed through the lens of her own childhood trauma. She co authored what Happened to youo with Dr. Bruce Perry, an American psychiatrist who specializes in child trauma. And from what I is like one of the less toxic doctors that Oprah is famous for launching to stardom. Although again, that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. In an interview about that book for today.com, oprah posited that her childhood trauma was responsible for her low moments, like the wagon of fat incident. I think that certainly all of the feelings of not fitting in of my disease to please or feeling like if I don't do what everyone wants me to do, I'm going to be rejected somehow. What I was afraid of, in every instance, I'm going to get a whipping, afraid I'm going to get that whipping. Thankfully, she adds, the decades of time she spent processing her pain has given her a sort of what she calls post traumatic wisdom that she thinks makes her a good spokesperson for every kind of suffering in America or for a lot, many kinds of suffering in American society today. Right. Like, because of my trauma. That's why I've done some of the things that I regret. It's my disease to please. It's like my fear of not fitting in. But because I have that trauma, I'm also a perfect spokesperson for many of these kinds of, like, traumas in American society. And the fact that she thinks that way is a really important prism to understand what she does. Because Oprah, in a lot of ways, if you look at, especially the first 10 or 15 years of her show, it's a mirror in Some ways of, like, the Jerry Springer show, like, they're literally doing some of the same episodes bringing, like, Klansmen out, you know, to have, like, big arguments and fights on stage. There's a lot of, like, you know, bringing out people in relationships who are having conflicts. It is that kind of, like trash TV. And then in the late 90s, she starts to pivot. And largely the thing that she pivots around is her taking her own childhood trauma, her own experiences of, like, physical and sexual abuse and whatnot, and using that as sort of a lens through which to explore those things in American society. And there's both a degree to which there are some really important issues that started getting attention because Oprah used herself as a lens to kind of, like, highlight them. And also there's this sense of, like, almost profiteering from the same things, which. Which makes this very complicated to discuss.

[Andrew Ti]

It's. I feel like it's so weird too, because it's like, at the time, as you're describing it, I probably wouldn't have perceived it as such. But like, we're also in an era where, like, influencer and just like, that is the product that everyone, you know, the children today are very casually selling.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

It's almost like the concept of, like, selling out for, like, between the 90s and the today's of it, it's like, you know, it's not something that you would bat an eye at everything you're describing right now.

[Garrison Keillor]

No, no, no. But it was really unique at the time. Right.

[Bridget Todd]

It does seem like she was, like, very ahead of the game on this. Like.

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh, yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

I think it's like the influencer bread and butter today. But back then, I mean, I do think that it set her apart from like, your Jerry Springers, your Jenny Joneses, to really put these kind of trauma off. Like, it was like authenticity before. That was a thing we expected from TV show hosts.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yep, that's exactly. I think that's exactly it, Bridget. And what's kind of undeniable is that that she was able to kind of get access to a lot of stories of people's hurting from her own background of suffering. Her old executive producer Diane Hudson once told people, profiles, quote, vulnerability is the key to Oprah's success. People appreciate when you can be honest. It lets them feel more comfortable about themselves. She's got this special kind of connective ability. I see it happen over and over again. Everyone who meets her feels like, oh, now I know her. That's what you're talking about. That kind of Authenticity being the buzzword that it is today, it all really starts with Oprah. And, yeah, it is one. It's both. I think there is a lot of vulnerability that she's been willing to put out there. But at the same time, Oprah's not like, Oprah is a conscious crafter of her own image and her own story. Right. She knows what she's doing. She's not like a naive in this kind of scenario. And that muddles the waters, too, because some of this authenticity is very carefully sculpted rather than something that's kind of come out purely just as a natural reaction, you know? And that's gonna make talking about some of this very hard, because we do have, like, especially when we talk about the traumas of her childhood, you have different sources who disagree and who disagree with, like, some of the things Oprah says about what happens to her. And as a spoiler, like, we're not gonna know, like, who's actually right here. Cause I certainly wasn't there when Oprah was a little kid. I'm gonna guess neither of you were either. Right. Two of the biggest sources for this episode are first, that book that Oprah wrote with a doctor about her own trauma. And then there's two biographies. One was written kind of early on in Oprah's time as a world famous Talk show host. 1999's Oprah Winfrey written by Meryl Noden for people profiles. And if you want even like, you know, that's kind of actually a surprisingly good for being a pop biography. Look at Oprah's backstory and kind of the different takes on what happened to her as a kid. A more recent biography is Kitty Kelly's Oprah, which is another major source for this episode. Now, I'm gonna warn you, Kitty's 2010 book is a mean biography.

[Bridget Todd]

It's the best kind.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's the best kind. But Kitty is, like, she is recognized as a lover of gossip and, like, you know, there's tabloid feel to this. She's also someone who does put in the work to dig up dirt on her subjects, but it tends to be, like, real dirt, you know? But this is a mean book, you know, like, don't mistake this for a work of, like, objective biography. Like, so, like all great media figures, including, you know, me, Oprah's hometown was a destitute little slice of hell in the middle of nowhere. This is something I really identify with her with. Right? She comes up in Kosciuszko, Mississippi, which is set 70 or so miles above Jackson. She Once said of her hometown, that place is so small you can spit and be out of town before your spit hits the ground. Which I both. I get that feeling, right, that like this isn't even. There's nothing here, right? Like this isn't even a town, which I like empathize with. That's how I felt as a kid about fucking Idabel. It's a little bit of an exaggeration. There were about 6,700 people in town when she grew up, which like isn't huge, but it's not quite that tiny. Now, she was born in the home of her maternal grandparents, Hattie Mae and Earlist Lee, who was known as Earless by the family because he was super old and also deaf as hell. The town has that weird Polish name because it's named after a Polish Revolutionary War general who was also an ardent abolitionist. And as a result it had a fairly or not as a result, but like that it having that name is a result of the fact that it had a very large black population. It was extremely segregated and extremely poor. So yeah, that's the town that she grows up in. And it's one of those places that had largely been built around a cotton mill which went bust in 1948. And that's kind of when things start to fall apart in her hometown because people start fleeing for northern cities that might still have work. You know, this is what's happening in Kosciuszko is kind of a. A microcosm of like a much larger national trend at the time. Right? Like this is, this is a thing that's happening elsewhere to a lot of places. Meryl Noden writes, quote, Oprah's parents were among those who left military service had already given 20 year old Vernon Winfrey a ticket out. He was at home on a furlough from Fort Rucker, Alabama. On the spring day he met vernita Lee, an 18 year old high school student and part time domestic worker. The two barely knew each other when they had what their daughter has described as a one day fling under an oak tree. The encounter seems to have been a source of shame for the ambitious young man who would go on to become a deacon in his church and a Nashville city councilman. I'm not proud of what happened with Oprah's mother and me, Winfrey has said. I tell people today that if something like that happens, the boy should help take care of the child. So that's the good for him. Yeah, it's not his. He's not told until she's born.

[Andrew Ti]

Right, right.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. And he does, like, send financial aid as soon as he's told, but, like, they don't really let him know until there's already a K. And as another spoiler, he might not actually be her biological father. I don't know that. That doesn't really make a huge deal in this story because they all think he is during this period of time. And he's, like, going to be very much a responsible dad to the extent that he is, like, allowed to be. But it is kind of, like, a little unclear as to what actually, like, who her actual biological dad is. I don't think that there's, like, a solid answer on that. Every biography will give you a little bit of a different answer. But Vernon is the one that they think is the biological father for most of this period of time. And Oprah. Gail Winfrey is born on January 29, 1954. And the story behind her name is a fun one. So does anyone know what Oprah's original name was supposed to be?

[Andrew Ti]

This is the one thing I think I know.

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

Wasn't it supposed to be Orpah?

[Garrison Keillor]

It was supposed to be Orpah, yeah. Which was. It's a biblical name. Ruth's like, if, you know. I think Ruth was, like, Moses's sister or. Cause she pretty. She was, like, tight with Moses, if I'm remembering the Bible right. And Orpah was one of her friends. And this is, like. It really says a lot about, like, the people here. Orpah is a Bible deep cut. This is the biblical equivalent of, like, a Star wars fan who names his kid after Kitster Binai, who's one of Anakin Skywalker's little friends from Tatooine. Sophie's gonna pull up a picture of Kitster here. Not for any real reason. I don't know why I thought this joke deserved to be presented, because you.

[Andrew Ti]

Are all we're filming. This is the razzle dazzle.

[Garrison Keillor]

There he is. There's Kitster. Look at him. Look at him.

[Bridget Todd]

Look at that boy doing, like, something on snl.

[Garrison Keillor]

I'm sure he has, like. I'm sure someone out there has, like, the. Has like the original model from when the Phantom Menace came out of this little child. Look at this kid.

[Robert Evans]

I love that haircut with the built in bangs.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, yeah. No, he's looking great. He's looking great. Anyway, I'm no more a Bible scholar than I am a fan of the Phantom Menace. I did have to look up that kid's name, although I remembered his face it's one of those things that's burnt into my head from my childhood. I gotta say though, from what I can read, and maybe I'm missing something here. Not being a Bible scholar, it feels like her aunt picking Orpah as a name might have been her throwing shade at the baby. Because in the book of Ruth, Orpah, the person Orpah has a chance to go with Ruth and someone named Naomi, who are like going down this more godly path or return to her old pagan gods and like her village and whatever. And Orpah turns back and goes back to being a pagan. Right. In rabbinic literature, according to Wikipedia. So again, I'm. I'm not a rabbinic literature effer. Orpah is identified with Harappa, the mother of Goliath and three other philistine giants. Also, Harappa had a lively social life, by which I mean, like got around. Right. The Babylonian Talmud describes her as being threshed by as many men as a man would thresh wheat.

[Bridget Todd]

Not threshed, threshed.

[Andrew Ti]

That's in the fucking Bible.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, the Bible. The Bible loves doing shit like this.

[Andrew Ti]

Who got threshed and how much.

[Bridget Todd]

Her body count was crazy.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah, I'm saying threshed.

[Garrison Keillor]

From now on, I'm saying threshed too. So all told, yeah, it seems like they're kind of shit talking this baby by naming it Orpah. I don't know why else you would go with Orpah. Like, it's not a super nice name to give a little kid just based on how the Bible talks about this person. Maybe she just thought it sounded pretty.

[Andrew Ti]

It's just that someone else in the congregation just named it Nebuchadnezzar and you just had to like one off.

[Garrison Keillor]

Now that's a name. That's a name. And it's also a size of wine bottle that's now legal in Florida.

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

[Garrison Keillor]

That just happened.

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

[Andrew Ti]

So that's like the three liter.

[Jason Alexander]

Are you.

[Andrew Ti]

Sorry.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's massive. Sophie can pull up a picture of a Nebuchadnezzar of wine.

[Robert Evans]

I'm not. Just imagine a really big bottle of wine. I'm not.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's very big. It's like most of your height of wine. So this is the first time where Oprah gets really lucky. Obviously she's born into a difficult situation, but she gets an early solid in the fact that somebody fucks up on her birth certificate and the name, the midwife misspells her name as Oprah and everyone just kind of decides, eh, good enough, right? And this little error might be one of the luckiest breaks that Oprah ever received, because I have trouble imagining Orpah working as well as a star's name.

[Bridget Todd]

The Orpah Winfrey Show.

[Garrison Keillor]

The Orpah Winfrey Show. I just have trouble imagining it. You know, Oprah just seems to flow a lot better. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we would all be saying that if she had been named Orpah and they'd been like, we almost called her Oprah. God, can you imagine? I don't know. But yeah. Anyway, you know what doesn't have a name is the nameless horror I feel when I think about you all missing out on these ads. Wow. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's a new year, and we're all asking ourselves versions of the same question. What do I want my 2025 story to be? Every January brings you 365 blank pages just waiting to be filled in 2025. Maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's a part of your story that you've been wanting to revise. Life isn't about resolutions that fade by February. It's about becoming the author of your own life. You can think of therapy as an editorial partner, helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live. And if you're considering therapy, you might consider giving better help a try. BetterHelp is full, making therapy affordable and convenient. Serving over 5 million people worldwide, you can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no additional cost. So write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com behind to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com behind Jon Stewart is back in.

[Jon Stewart]

The host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast. The Daily Show Podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jason Alexander]

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden, and together on the really Know Really Podcast. Our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us. How are you?

[Andrew Ti]

Hello.

[Jason Alexander]

My friend Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really Know really, sir.

[Garrison Keillor]

Bless you all.

[Jason Alexander]

Hello Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.

[Garrison Keillor]

Really? That's the opening. Really? No.

[Andrew Ti]

Really?

[Jason Alexander]

Yeah, really?

[Garrison Keillor]

No, really.

[Jason Alexander]

Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called really no really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danny Trejo]

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Tales from the Shadows presented by I Heart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

[Garrison Keillor]

Unless.

[Danny Trejo]

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time, listen to Nocturno Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Tura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Garrison Keillor]

Hey listeners, I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, host.

[Bridget Todd]

Of the Murder on Songbird Road podcast. Murder on Songbird Road revisits a controversial 2020 murder that occurred in southern Illinois. It divided a community and pitted families against one another. But questions remain as to whether the mother of four serving time for the.

[Garrison Keillor]

Crime is actually guilty.

[Bridget Todd]

I'm excited to tell you that you can get access to all episodes of Murder on Songbird Road 100% ad free and one week before anyone else with an iHeart True Crime plus subscription. So don't wait.

[Garrison Keillor]

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for IHEART.

[Bridget Todd]

True Crime plus and subscribe today.

[Garrison Keillor]

And we're back. So we're talking Oprah, who has now come into the world. So once she is born, the job of caring for this new baby is almost immediately made the work of Hattie Mae Presley her great grandmother. And that Presley there is going to be the reason why Oprah will, for years, for a big chunk of her life, claim that she is related to Elvis. This does not seem to be the case. I don't think anyone in her family ever believed that. But she will make statements like that for quite some time. And it's one of the things that members of her family will be like, I don't know why she does that. We're not related to Elvis in any way.

[Bridget Todd]

Like, does she still do that today, you think?

[Garrison Keillor]

I. I don't think she still does it, but maybe I'm wrong about that. All of the times I found, like, all of the quotes of her claiming that I found are from earlier in her career.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, man, that's truly a wild thing to claim. Like, truly.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

I could see it if it was, like, a widespread family myth that we have Elvis's kin, but it doesn't seem to be. Cause it's always in these books, it's always her family being like, yeah, we got nothing to do with Elvis. I don't know what she's doing that.

[Andrew Ti]

Without being too wildly cynical. The value of being related to Elvis has also diminished greatly in the last probably 20 years. So there's just, like, no reason to keep it up.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, yeah. It's certainly like, there's less. Yeah, you get less cred from being related to Elvis.

[Andrew Ti]

Oh, cool.

[Bridget Todd]

And like, just having the same last. The same common last. It's like me saying, like, my last name is Todd. It's like me saying, oh, Chuck, Todd and I are related. It's like, y'all have a very common last name. And what cachet would you be trying to get from that?

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. Or it's like me bragging about my relationship to Rick Santorum, but, I mean.

[Andrew Ti]

But also, like, without getting too gross about American history, the obvious thing is when a black person and a white person have the same last name, the antecedent tends to be a different thing than direct.

[Garrison Keillor]

Well.

[Andrew Ti]

Or whatever. I mean, there's lots of awful ways, but.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. I mean, one way. But in this case, there doesn't seem to be any, like, evidence of that. Right. Like, that it's because, like, Presley's not an uncommon last name. Right. There's a shitload of fucking Presley's out there. So Hattie Mae was the granddaughter of slaves. So that is, like, how kind of, you know, we're talking about, like, the 50s here. Right. And she worked as the cook for the sheriff of Kosciusko. And Managed the household of a rich white family, the Leonards. And at this point, we've got two pretty different. We start to get two very different stories of Oprah's first six years alive. She once told reporters, quote, I never had a store bought dress or a pair of shoes until I was six years old. The only toy I had was a corn cob doll with toothpicks. This is like pretty consistent in terms of how Oprah talks about her life. Kitty Kelly writes, quote, she recalled her early years as lonely, with no one to play with except the pigs that she rode bareback around her grandmother's yard. I only had barnyard animals to talk to. I read them Bible stories. She regaled her audiences with stories of having to carry water from the well, milk cows and empty the slop jar. A childhood of cinders and ashes that was the stuff of fairy tales. Oprah morphed into Oparella as she spun her tales about the switch wielding grandmother and cane thumping grandfather who raised her until she was six years old. Oh, the whoopins I got, she said. And the degree to which this is myth making is up for debate. It is worth noting that that a number of her family members and friends of the family who knew Oprah during this period very much don't agree with this take on her childhood. And I wanna read a quote from that People profiles biography here. Among Oprah's many assets may be a gift for self dramatization. As Vernita once put it, Oprah toots it up a little. In one tale Oprah has often told, she has cast herself as a lonely child whose main comfort was talking to the farm animals. The nearest neighborhood was a blind neighbor, was a blind man up the road. She once said, there weren't other k, no playmates, no toys, except for one corn cob doll. I played with the animals and I made speeches to the cows. Esther's, which is her aunt, has a different explanation for the loneliness Oprah remembers. Right across the road were Oprah's cousins, the Presley twins, who were her age. They played together when Oprah was allowed to come outside because Aunt Hat was very protective of her. And it seems that there's at least a good amount of evidence that the real Oprah story, at least the story of her childhood that the majority of the people who were there for it tells is not that she was like locked, you know, is that she was isolated because this was some like, middle of the nowhere dirt farm. It's because she had a grandmother who was something of a helicopter Parent. Right. And while the family certainly wasn't rich, they weren't dirt poor. And in fact, everyone seems to agree that Oprah had a lot of toys. The whole I only had a corn cob doll thing is definitely not true. But the reason she had a lot of nice toys is that they were all hand me downs from the rich white family that Hattie Mae worked for, which is a complicated thing. Right. When you're thinking about, like, why would somebody kind of exaggerate the lack of stuff that they had as a kid when it's like, well, but also the stuff that you have comes to you as a result of this relationship that's kind of very fundamentally unequal and that you were probably somewhat aware of at the time. And Oprah, in fact, talks a lot about how she was aware of the fact that, like, white girls were treated very differently in her town and wanted to be white as a little kid. So, like, this is all very messy.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah. It goes back to what you were saying, Robert, about how a lot of her early story is quite sympathetic. And it's very easy. Like, it's. On the one hand, it's easy to say, oh, well, she was doing some myth making and saying she didn't have any toys. But it's also, like, more complicated and sort of truer to be like, well, she had toys, but they came from the white kids and that she didn't.

[Garrison Keillor]

Maybe.

[Bridget Todd]

Maybe was aware of the dynamic there. Like, it's less satisfying and more complex, but it doesn't make it any less true.

[Garrison Keillor]

Right, right. And it's also one of those things where she talks a lot about being whipped and switched and how she didn't feel like the same thing happened to the white kids. Now, does that mean white kids in Alabama? I'm sure plenty of them got beat by their parents, too. But what kind of matters more there is her feeling on it, Right. That there were these kids that my grandma's job is to serve, and they clearly get these much nicer things than I am. And it's not surprising to me that that would color her concept of her childhood much more than what her older aunts would have picked up on, which is like, well, she always had the nice things. Right. Yeah. Neither of them can be lying. And there can still be a discrepancy between what they remember, if that makes sense.

[Andrew Ti]

But it feels like myth making is sort of a fair way to say it. Like, this is just kind of the exact shorthand, especially in a, like, entertainment capacity.

[Garrison Keillor]

Like, the whole, I only had the cows to talk to thing is definitely a bit of myth making because, like, everyone does agree, like, no, she had more family around her than that. That's a little. That's a little bit playing it up, right?

[Bridget Todd]

That's like, straight out of the movie Pearl, like, oh, putting on speeches for the pigs.

[Garrison Keillor]

So, yeah, Oprah, one of the stories she tells is that she was, like, forced to make friends cockroaches, which is actually like, a reoccurrent bit of hers in her early years. Quote, we were so poor, we couldn't afford a cat or a dog. So I made pets out of two cockroaches. I put them in a jar and named them Melinda and Sandy. And Oprah's sister, Patricia Lloyd, does not entirely agree with this take. Oprah exaggerated how bad we had it, I guess, to get sympathy from her viewers and widen her audience. She never had cockroaches for pets. She always had a dog. She also had a white cat, an eel in an aquarium, and a parakeet called Bo Peep that she tried to teach to. And she had an eel.

[Robert Evans]

She had a parakeet.

[Garrison Keillor]

Come on.

[Andrew Ti]

I'm sorry. It's hard to. You really blasted past the eel part.

[Garrison Keillor]

Of the eel at a point. Well, here's the thing, though, because, like, Patricia Lloyd is telling the truth. I think. I'm sure that Oprah had those pets, but Patricia is younger than Oprah and doesn't meet Oprah until Oprah is not living with her grandmother anymore. Patricia and Oprah never get along. And a big chunk of this is, is I'm not gonna throw out stories like this from family members who were like, yeah, it wasn't as bad as she says it was because there's definitely a good amount of myth making going on here. But also, there's a lot of people who are angry that Oprah got rich and that they didn't get as much of that money as they wanted to get. And so that's also a factor in some of these. Like. Like, Patricia doesn't know what was going on in that farmhouse because she wasn't.

[Bridget Todd]

Alive then, and she's probably just a hater.

[Garrison Keillor]

That's not zero percent of why she's saying this. Right? Yeah. Now, that said, there's also some evidence that, like, Oprah really pushes aside how doting her family was to her, because that's not kind of the conception. She. She always has this sort of, like, I've always been alone attitude, and maybe that's how she felt. But her maternal aunt Susie said This to Kitty Kelly. We all just adored her. We just worshiped her and everything. My mother, Hattie, gave Oprah everything she wanted her to have and everything Oprah wanted. And so we were poor people, but we got it for us. Her, she claimed she had no dolls, but she had lots of dolls, all kinds of dolls. And I, you know, I don't think that's lying either. I don't think it's uncommon for a kid to be like, well, I felt alone. And for the people around that kid to be like, but you weren't, you know? And again, neither of those people are necessarily lying. That just gets down to people taking very different things. And like, childhood, you're not aware of the stuff that maybe adults see.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

How old. Wait, how old is she in this time period? One to six.

[Andrew Ti]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

Or birth to six, I should say. Right.

[Andrew Ti]

I feel like that's exactly the type of disagreement that you always have with you. You don't really remember how nice everyone was to you when you were six.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. Cause I have a lot of complaints about my own childhood, like 1 to 7 or 8. And I'm sure my mom would say, we were all working our asses off to take care of you. And it's like, well, yeah, but also, you weren't around a lot of the time. You know, like, that's just a. Nobody's wrong there. As the parent, you're like, but you understand that what I was doing was trying to take care of you. And as the kid, you're like, yeah, but I was still really unhappy, you know, like, that's just childhood, you know? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Kitty makes an interesting note here, pulling from a 2009 interview Oprah did with Barbra Streisand, in which Barbara, who grew up in poverty, talked about the fact that her only doll was a hot water bot. Oprah, who had previously claimed to only have a doll she made from a corn cob, replied, wow, you were poorer than I was. So again, myth making is going on here. She's not ever totally consistent, you know, how poor she was depends on who she's talking to when she's talking to someone who was, like, really growing up. Also very poor. Oprah maybe, like, you know, eases up on the throttle a little bit. She's an entertainer. Yeah, yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

I remember that Barbara Walters Oprah crossover very well because it ends with a very good performance where Barbara Walters painted Oprah Jesus Christ's microphone white because she was not Barbara Walters. Barbara Streisand painted her microphone White. Because her thing is like, wait, are you talking about Streisand or Walters?

[Garrison Keillor]

I think I'm talking about Streisand. Let me double check in this so I don't have fuck this up if it's Streisand.

[Bridget Todd]

That was like a. A very big moment in Oprah lore.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, I think it's. I'm pretty sure it's Streisand. It's just that she also talked. She talked to everyone. Cause we just talked about Barbara Walters in here, who she mentioned, like, wishing that she had been white as a little girl. To Barbara Walters. Barbra Streisand, I think, is the interview about how poor they were. Yeah, yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

All the Barbaras.

[Garrison Keillor]

All the Barbaras. Too many Barbaras in this story. If they were famous in the 90s or early 2000s, Oprah had a tearful conversation with. With them. So, yeah. Kitty Kelly quotes from a Life article in 1997 which includes this line. Oprah was the least powerful of girls, born poor and illegitimate on the segregated south, on a town in Kosciuszko, Mississippi. She spent her first six years there abandoned to her maternal grandmother. And so you can see that, like, this spin on the story, which is parts of it, I'm sure are emotionally true, some of it is certainly literally true. But also. So the idea that she was abandoned, I think it's more. I think that doesn't quite get at the truth, which is that her grandmother took her over because her mother was not a reliable parent. And this was. She benefited a lot from the fact that she had her grandmother during this. Very similar, actually, to Clarence Thomas story, right? Where you had this kid who was growing up in a very impoverished background but wound up being taken care of, their grandparent, who was the absolute most responsible person to raise them in that period of time. And so it is this situation where that's both, I'm sure, very difficult for the child who's not being raised by their parents. But it's also not this situation of, like, this is an example of there being a strong safety net in her childhood that a number of. A lot of other kids in the same situation wouldn't necessarily benefited from. And both of those things are, I think, critical to talk about, whether we're talking about Thomas or talking about Winfrey. And this is where you get kind of a lot of the discrepancies, because the Winfrey family historian Catherine Esters, who is, I think, technically a cousin, but one of those cousins who Oprah grew up seeing as an aunt, has really taken A lot of issues with Oprah's description of her childhood. And she told Kitty Kelly this. All things considered, those years with Hattie Mae were the best thing that could have happened to a baby girl born to poor kin. Oprah grew up as an only child with the full and undivided attention of every one of us. Her grandparents, her aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as her mot, who Oprah never mentions, was with her every day for the first four and a half years of Oprah's life until she went north to Milwaukee to find a better job. And when I read this, I was very surprised because all of the other things I'd read about her childhood said that her mom had left immediately. But Esther's claims like, no, her mom was there for four and a half years and then just bounced for like 18 months to try and set up a life and does eventually bring her up to Milwaukee, which is a different version of her story. Right. Like, again, there's, there's a lot, there's less abandonment here than, than at least certain versions of the story. And obviously I wasn't there to tell you who was lying or not, but, yeah, I don't know.

[Andrew Ti]

That feels exactly like perception, though. Between 0 and 4, if your mom leaves, how would you materially know the difference between four and one, really? You're barely there as a kid.

[Garrison Keillor]

Right. And that is kind of the difficulty of how formative that period is and then how shitty our memory is of it. Cause I always, especially when I do stuff like this and I read about. Well, if, if I were to write my own recollection of my early childhood out and then talk to my relatives about it, how many of them would be like, no, that's not what happened? No. Right. You're a kid. Yeah. You're a small child. So again, I don't even know how much of this is myth making. And just that was her. She felt abandoned. And so maybe then it is like, is that even more accurate than the truth that her mom was actually there most of the time, if that's what she took out of that period of time?

[Bridget Todd]

I don't know if you know the answer to this, but no. Are the, are, are the family members that, that are speaking on this sort of correcting the record? Are they alleging that Oprah is sort of outright falsifying what her childhood was like?

[Garrison Keillor]

Aunt Catherine? Definitely. Is she. She is very much. She's talking a lot of shade about Oprah. I think she takes it very personally because she was one of the People helping to raise her that she talks about her childhood this way, way. And there's always the, the question of like how much does money and people being unhappy about money play into some of this? I can't answer that. There's been allegations of that too. You know, nobody's like coming into this without an angle. But, but Aunt Catherine is definitely alleging Oprah lies a lot about her childhood. That is her, that is precisely how she frames it. Is that like she's, she's telling a lot of tall tales, you know? Yeah. Complicated.

[Andrew Ti]

So it's just like when the successful person in your family is the most like the richest person in media. That's, that's when it becomes a thing.

[Garrison Keillor]

That's a complicated.

[Andrew Ti]

So much of this sounds so standard to any shit talking family, I have to say.

[Garrison Keillor]

Right.

[Bridget Todd]

I would be such a hater if my sibling became Oprah. Famous. Anybody? Yeah, put a microphone on my face and I'll say whatever. I would be such a hater.

[Garrison Keillor]

No, just, just buy me a vineyard and I'll shut up. You'll never hear from me again. Go date Stedman. We're good. So there's also another aspect of this that didn't really come out until more recently. Oprah was open a lot about physical abuse that she endured. Although I should say when I say physical abuse, it is accurate to call it abuse. It is also totally normal corporal punishment for the time. Right. Like the stuff she is talking about. My grandma would make me go get a switch and then would beat me if I did things that were bad. That is extremely normal for this place and time. Right.

[Bridget Todd]

I mean, I have to say, like, that is how I was raised. I grew up in the South. That's, I mean, that's just like, I.

[Garrison Keillor]

Know a lot of people.

[Bridget Todd]

Same like, I know a lot of people today for whom that is like a normal vibe, even though it is abuse.

[Garrison Keillor]

And it's one of those things people will critique her for, like, and be like, ah, she wasn't really, she wasn't beat more than anybody else. Like, you know, Hattie was particularly violent for a parent in that era. But also, I don't think Oprah's wrong for being like, this is really fucked up and you shouldn't hit kids with switches. So I think I give that point to Oprah on the whole. Yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

And especially making the kid go out and get their own switch.

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

If you've ever had to do that. That's like a special kind of psychological torture.

[Garrison Keillor]

A lot of it does sound very Familiar? Yeah. Just growing up in the south, like, I got smacked, you know, I don't think more than my fair share. Share. And it's the kind of thing where, like, there's a part of me that wants to be. If I were to hear someone else complaining about the kind of stuff that was done to me as a kid, I'd be like, well, man, that was just growing up as a kid in rural Oklahoma in the 90s. But it's also bad. You should do that to kids. So maybe. Maybe I'll just shut up about that. You know, it's that kind of like. It's that attitude where, like, if you went through something and you never really thought of it as that bad, then you get kind of offended when other people speak up, even if they should be. That's probably just a thing we have to get over as people. I don't know.

[Andrew Ti]

Well, see, I went through it. I paid off my student loans. I did xo y bullshit. And it's like, well, yeah, this must.

[Garrison Keillor]

Have been hitting me as a kid, I guess. Earlier I mentioned that 2021 book with Dr. Bruce Perry, who by Oprah's standards is a pretty good doctor, but also seems to think ADHD isn't real. So again, by Oprah standards, does a lot of heavy lifting there. Like, I was reading through this guy's bio, and I was like, okay, he seems like a real. Oh, he doesn't think ADHD is a thing, huh? Okay, cool. We got some RFK vibes coming off of this fella in that book. What happened to you? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing. Each chapter opens up with a brief vignette or essay by either Oprah or Dr. Perry. And the rest of each chapter is literally just like a convers transcript between the two, written out in Q and A format. It is a very lazy book in my opinion. Right. This is the easiest way to write a fucking book. Everyone does, like, 10 pages of essays, and then you just fucking record a conversation, man. How do I get that job? Right? Like, that's. Beautiful grift. Beautiful grift. That said, there's also some, like, pretty poignant vignettes from Oprah here, which I think maybe fills it out a little bit more. That includes some stark claims from her childhood. Now, we should remember this book came out just a couple of years ago. So this is a senior citizen and reflecting half a century later on things that would have happened when she was six at the oldest. So the best case scenario here, there's no way you Know, even if we discount, like, some myth making, you're never going to be perfectly accurate in your recollections of stuff that happened in this time. But here's how Oprah writes about, you know, the way in which discipline was done when she was a child. At the time, it was accepted practice for caregivers to use corporal punishment to discipline a child. My grandmother, Hattie Mae, embraced it. But even at three years old, I knew what I was experiencing was wrong. One of the worst beating I can recall happened on a Sunday morning. Going to church played a major role in our lives. Just before we were to leave for service, I was sent to the well behind our house to pump water. The farmhouse where I lived with my grandparents did not have indoor plumbing. From the window, my grandmother caught a glimpse of me twirling my fingers in the water and became enraged. Though I was only daydreaming innocently, as any child might. She was angry because this was our drinking water and I had put my fingers in it. She then asked me if I had been playing in the water, and I said, no, no. She bent me over and whipped me so violently my flesh welted. Afterward, I managed to put on my white Sunday best dress. Blood began to seep through and stain the crisp fabric, a deep crimson. Livid at the sight, she chastised me for getting blood on my dress, then sent me to Sunday school in the rural South. This is how black children were raised. Yeah. And it's one of those. Esther's Aunt Catherine takes a lot of issue with this. She was like, hattie Mae did not beat Oprah every day of her life. Every. And like, I'm sure it wasn't every day, but I don't think Oprah's probably. That's a very specific story to have lied about.

[Bridget Todd]

And it's like, so visceral that if you. If that happened to you while you were a little kid, no shit, it's gonna be memorable. No shit, it's gonna be something you can recall.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, that'll stick with you. Yeah, yeah, of course that would stick with you. Yeah. And I think this might be again, when we talk about. Cause it'd be very easy, especially since this is a Bastards episode, to just lean on Esther's being like, she lied about this, she lied about that. But, like, well, she was one of the people who was taking care of Oprah when Oprah was getting smacked around as a kid and maybe did some of the smacking and maybe doesn't want to think about that as having been A problem. Right. Cool stuff. I think Oprah does genuinely care about child abuse. It's something she has devoted a lot of her life to trying to fight. Although ways, in ways that have been unperfect, they're imperfect. There's like criticisms of some of the stuff that she's tried to do for this. But it is something that she's like put a lot of time and effort into and that kind of does make me think she's probably telling the truth all in all about like what she experienced as a kid. And what's interesting to me is that Oprah, while she's all, you know, been mostly seems to have negative things to say about her grandma. She's also very clear that like Hattie Mae is the first person who inculcated with her within her the behavior that made her a success later on, quote I developed a keen sense of when trouble was brewing. I recognized the shift in my grandmother's voice or the look that meant I had displeased her. She was not a mean person. I believe she cared for me and wanted me to be a good girl. And I understood that hushing my mouth or silence was the only way to ensure a quick end to punishment and pain for the next 40 years. That pattern of condition compliance, the result of deeply rooted trauma, would define every relationship, interaction and decision in my. The long term impact of being whooped, then forced to hush and even smile about it turned me into a world class people pleaser for most of my life. And I think there's a Oprah would suggest that like part of why she got to be so good at what we call myth making, at entertaining people. Because what is entertainment but people pleasing is that she spends so much of her early childhood trying to keep her grandmother mother happy. Right.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, I, I mean I. Not to be sympathizing with our bastard but I mean like that. Yeah, I mean like that is my, that is my childhood. Right. Like I think that is like classic kid who grew up getting that kind of punishment in a household where even as an adult you become so perceptive to like the tiniest little changes in someone's demeanor and you kind of had to be to to survive in households like that. Like that is like that rings true to me.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. My child I wouldn't say was as extreme as what Oprah has related but I definitely vibe with the feeling of like there is someone in my house who gets angry at me easily and I'm going to get very good at like people pleasing and at lying in order to Avoid pissing them off.

[Bridget Todd]

And I have to ask Robert, like, as a podcaster to podcaster, do you kind of feel like this is, like, why you are good at, like, storytelling and entertaining and keeping people happy and laughing and smiling with you? Right. Like, she's not wrong.

[Garrison Keillor]

I, I, I don't think she's wrong at all. And like, it's, it's all of that. And it's also why I've always been really good at talking to the cops, at, like, lying to the cops, at getting out of trouble with the police, is that I know when somebody has allegedly, I know how to weasel out of it. Like allegedly lying. Yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

Like you learn to protect a crime.

[Robert Evans]

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Garrison Keillor]

Allegedly. Yeah. A lot of successful entertainers have something like this in their background. Right. I actually had this written out. Like, you learn to please people, and that teaches you how to please crowds. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Speaking of pleasing crowds.

[Garrison Keillor]

Fuck the crowds. Let's please our advertisers.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

The only crowd that matters.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

John Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily show podcast has everything you need need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get yours.

[Garrison Keillor]

Podcasts.

[Jason Alexander]

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the really. No, really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why they refused to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientists who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us. How are you?

[Andrew Ti]

Hello.

[Jason Alexander]

My friend Wayne Knight. About Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really no, really, sir.

[Garrison Keillor]

Bless you all.

[Jason Alexander]

Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.

[Garrison Keillor]

Really? That's the opening. Really? No.

[Andrew Ti]

Really?

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, really?

[Jason Alexander]

No really go to reallynoreally.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign. Jason Bobblehead. It's called really? No really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danny Trejo]

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Take Hail from the Shadows presented by iheart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Tura Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Garrison Keillor]

Hey listeners, I'm Lauren Bragg Pacheco, host.

[Bridget Todd]

Of the Murder on Songbird Road podcast. Murder on Songbird Road revisits a controversial 2020 murder that occurred in Southern Illinois. It divided a community and pitted families against one another. But questions remain as to whether the mother of four serving time for the.

[Garrison Keillor]

Crime is actually guilty.

[Bridget Todd]

I'm excited to tell you that you can get access to all episodes of Murder on Songbird Road 100% ad free and one week before anyone else with an I Heart iHeart True Crime plus subscription. So don't wait.

[Garrison Keillor]

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for I.

[Bridget Todd]

Heart True Crime plus and subscribe Today.

[Garrison Keillor]

It was big news. I mean, white girl gets murdered, found in a cemetery. Big, big news.

[Robert Evans]

When a young woman is murdered, a desperate search for answers takes investigators to some unexpected places. He believed it could be part of a satanic cult.

[Andrew Ti]

I think there were many individuals individual present. I don't know who pulled the trigger.

[Robert Evans]

A long investigation stalls until someone changes their story.

[Bridget Todd]

I like saw hoping that happened.

[Robert Evans]

An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow.

[Garrison Keillor]

He just saw his body just kind of collapsing.

[Robert Evans]

Two decades later, a new team of lawyers says their client is innocent.

[Bridget Todd]

He did not kill her.

[Robert Evans]

There's no way is the real killer rightly behind bars or still walking free. Are you capable of murder?

[Andrew Ti]

I definitely am not.

[Robert Evans]

Did you kill her? Listen to the real Killer Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Garrison Keillor]

So on the whole, you know, I think Oprah lies a lot about the specific. I think there are specifics that get exaggerated and just specifics that are misremembered about her past. But I don't think that means means her we should discount what she says Right. And I think particularly we should pay attention when she says, quote, the most pervasive feeling I remember from my own childhood is loneliness. And I can believe that at the same time as I believe her Aunt Catherine when she tells Kitty Kelly, quote, oprah makes her first six years sound like the worst thing that ever befell a child born to folks just trying to survive. I was there for most of the time, and I can tell you she was spoiled and petted and indulged better than any little girl in these parts. Every parent knows that a child's first six years lays the foundation of her. And those first six years down here with Hattie Mae gave Oprah the foundation for her self confidence, her speaking ability, and her desire to succeed. I don't actually think both of those things are in conflict the way that they both think it does.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah, I think that's exactly like, as we've been saying, these are all the skills you gain. I do feel it's worth saying that, though, sometimes you gain these skills also. Also, the majority of the time, people are crushed and hurt by this type of.

[Bridget Todd]

It can be both. You can be crushed, but also a good entertainer.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, you could be.

[Andrew Ti]

You can be, but it's not like a magic spell.

[Bridget Todd]

No, no, I would not recommend. This is not how I would recommend raising a child.

[Garrison Keillor]

Entertainers. But for in more cases, like if you're an entertainer, like, this story still ends in a place like the fucking floor in front of the Viper Room, as opposed to having $2 billion, you know, RIP River Phoenix. Yeah. So there's another story Oprah tells in this book, which, again, I don't like this book overall, but this passage struck me, and if it is accurate, I think it's something that may hint of some darkness buried in the family history that its historian Aunt Catherine may not be willing to see. Growing up in Mississippi, I always slept with my grandmother. My grandfather, who had dementia, slept in a side room. One night, I was suddenly awakened to see my grandfather standing over the bed. Even before I opened my eyes, I could sense my grandmother's fear. I could feel her heightened awareness as she slowly repeated, earlist, get back to bed. Earlist, get back to bed. He wouldn't go. He was trying to choke her, fighting to get his hands around her neck. When she finally managed to push him off of her and run to the door, she cried out for one of our neighbors called Cousin Henry, who lived down the road. Henry, Henry, Henry. Henry was blind, but without hesitation, he came in the middle of the night to help My grandmother put my grandfather back in his bedroom. My grandmother then wedged a chair under the doorknob to her bedroom door and found some cans to put around the door. The next morning, she tied those cans together and hung them from the door. And every night for the rest of my days living with my grandmother, the cans were on the door and the chair was up under the knob. I would try to sleep while listening to make sure that the cans didn't move.

[Andrew Ti]

Fuck.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So dark.

[Andrew Ti]

That's so scary. Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's interesting she tells this anecdote in the book because it goes along with another story she's telling, which is that she's talking about this school shooting in 1988, when a woman named Lori Dan entered a second grade classroom in Winnetka and started shooting, killing an eight year old and wounding five other kids. And Oprah tells her own story because in the aftermath of this shooting, there had been a discussion about whether or not to chain and lock the school doors and have them manned by security guards. And the principal refused to implement these changes because he was like, if there's a chain on the door, it sends a message to the that they're unsafe. And kind of Oprah brings up the story to be like, I really feel that because of these cans hung from the door that were supposed to make us safer. That just reminded me that there was this constant danger from my grandfather. So, yeah, anyway, interesting.

[Andrew Ti]

I don't have children, but it is so fucked up to me. That's like, I mean, we're not going to make them safe, but we don't want to make them feel unsafe.

[Bridget Todd]

Safe, which they hire.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

And it's, you know, Aunt Catherine, I think would probably say again, would doubt that that had happened. One of the statements she made to Kitty Kelly was, I've talked to her about this over the years. I've confronted her and asked, why do you tell such lies? Oprah told me that's what people want to hear. The truth is boring, Aunt Catherine. People don't want to be bored. They want stories with drama. And so it is. You can't help think to a little bit like, well, did she make that up? Or add to that in order to have something that was relevant to the story of a shooting from her own life, which is like a thing, you know, being able to like, and it's like, you can't know. It is kind of worth stating that like a lot of the people who will argue that about Oprah, and these are arguments coming from members of her Family, Aunt Catherine. Ahead of them are also people who probably have a deep emotional interest in remembering, you know, Grandma Hattie and her husband as one kind of person. And Oprah. The fact that Oprah doesn't remember them that way is probably deeply offensive to these people. And maybe, Yeah, I don't know, there's like, no way to know what actually happened. Right. None of us were there, but the fact that this conflict is present is as much a part of the story as what actually happened. Right.

[Bridget Todd]

I would also say just growing up in, like, a Southern black family, I do think there might be some aspect of, like, don't. You're not meant to talk about whatever happens in our house.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah.

[Bridget Todd]

And so the, like, like, her aunt being offended that she would even be talking about anything that went on, you know, behind closed doors in their house, that I could really see that. And like, again, I don't think it's all one or the other that she's just like, callously making this up because people need a story. Probably some of that. But that doesn't mean that her family members would invested in these stories that paint them in not so great light, you know? Not so great light. Be not something that's talked about on a national stage.

[Garrison Keillor]

Right, right, right. Yeah. And I think that's like. That's a pretty important part of it as well.

[Andrew Ti]

I will say another thing that is kind of weird and partially because I am relatively not versed in Oprah and the elements of her bastardiness. You know, the ones that I know about mostly seem to be about elevating horror. Horrible men.

[Garrison Keillor]

Right.

[Andrew Ti]

Which sort of do you know, I could see paths to that. Anyway, I guess what I mean is, like, none of these, like, trauma. Well, not even. Not the traumas, but none of these, like, lies or, like, questionable stories. It's like, weird because that doesn't seem like the dimension of which like. Like the type of bad person that does those things tends to be more of like just a general asshole or a liar in some way. And it's just interesting that I'm like, this doesn't seem to be the bad part, I guess.

[Garrison Keillor]

No, no. Well, also, she's six up to this point in the story. Yeah.

[Andrew Ti]

Even in the retellings. Sorry. Like, even if they are exaggerations. Like, it's so weird because it's like she could do all that stuff and still not promote Dr. Oz. Like, she could be a weird, kind of, like, shady, you know, Hollywood person, which happens.

[Garrison Keillor]

Most people who lie about their childhoods don't also start Dr. Oz's career.

[Andrew Ti]

I think that's. That's like maybe what I'm saying.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. So, you know, the attitude of her, a number of members of her family, including her mom Vernita and her Aunt Catherine, is that. And this is Aunt Catherine again. She always wanted to have the spotlight. If adults were talking and she couldn't get their attention, she'd walk over and hit them to make them pay attention to her. And I think that that's, you know, that's probably true because I have seen other kids do that. You know, it's a thing you have to like, stop when a kid is doing that. But like, that's not an uncommon stage of development or like for kids to scream and pout when they don't get attention. You know, like, they're small children, they are still learning these sorts of things. That said, it's not inconsistent with what Oprah says about being lonely or about wanting to be a people pleaser. This is also a kid that is obsessed. Obsessed with having people pay attention to her. And as a result, she is from a very early age a performer, which is really interesting to me. She, like every black church in her hometown, she's given like speeches at and like read poems at and whatnot. By the time she is six or seven, which is a continuing thing in her life, when she moves, you know, to the big city, she'll be doing the same thing going at every single church she can find and like doing these kind of live performances. She's doing that from the age of like 4 or 5. And this appears to be something in which she is entirely self motivated to do. Like, she is pushing for her family to take her to these churches so that she can do like live performances. Right. Like, this is always a thing that she wants in her life, which is, you know, interesting to me. And something that's gonna be a bigger thing in part two of our episodes. But that concludes part one of the Oprah Winfrey Story.

[Andrew Ti]

That's wild. I didn't realize that the church circuit was basically like open mic night for being a talk show host.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh, my God.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's a specific kind of open night mic night.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, it, it's. Yeah, it definitely is. I have seen the folks who, like, if you ever.

[Andrew Ti]

It makes sense.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah. Like people who speak at a certain kind of cadence. You're like, o that you're a church kid. You were like raised giving speeches at church. Wow.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's really interesting to me that like, she has cause like this does kind of speak to some of the things her aunt was saying about like, you know, we were all really focused on her. There was so much attention that went her way because. Well, yeah, I mean, it would probably be pretty hard for her to have gotten taken to all of these different places. Right. To all of these different churches and whatnot. If her family wasn't interested in her and like focused on her success. That said it also, that's exactly the kind of thing a kid who was deeply lonely would really want to do. Right. Like, that's because those are the kind of kids who become entertainers in a lot of ways.

[Andrew Ti]

It is a pretty unique thing. I can't imagine. I mean, I don't think I got comfortable speaking publicly till I was like 28. So like the fact that was like a 6 year old was like, let me, I just need, I just need some stage time this Sunday morning.

[Garrison Keillor]

I loved it. I was a little. Church wasn't where I did it, but like, yeah, I was attention, a little attention. I guess I was, I attended.

[Andrew Ti]

But like, truly public speaking is, I think, different.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what she's doing, the fact that she is like, she has the confidence in her speaking abilities to want to get up at church, which is like a big thing in a lot of ways, especially to a little kid. That's really interesting to me.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

Anyone surprised about anything so far?

[Robert Evans]

I think it's surprising to see the like, conflicting stories. There's.

[Andrew Ti]

Yeah, yeah, I, I will say I don't think anyone's scrutiny of any of the tales they tell about being six or younger would hold up to anything that's been put through this.

[Garrison Keillor]

No.

[Andrew Ti]

So like every, every knock against Oprah in this capacity. I am wildly sympathetic too. I'm just like, I don't know, you're talking about when you're a six and you're doing it in front of presumably a bunch of like white producers and network executives mostly. So it's like, gotta do what you gotta do.

[Bridget Todd]

Sometimes I am surprised that I pretty much uncritically just every thing that Oprah ever said about her childhood, I believed. I repeated it in my fifth grade report. Sophie, I don't know if you did, but the thing about the dolls and her first getting her first pair of shoes at 6. I specifically put that in my report. And now I'm like, dang, should have fact checked that.

[Robert Evans]

Fifth grade. Us.

[Andrew Ti]

I know. Terrible journalists.

[Garrison Keillor]

Oh man. Yeah. I'm always fascinated by the vagaries of memory. The past is not just a Foreign country. It didn't happen. It's a fantasy. It's a fiction novel. Right. It's a fiction novel that you've been writing your entire life without even knowing it. Anyway, go sleep on that, everybody. We'll be back in a couple of days. Oh, wait. Plugables.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Andrew Ti]

From us.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Keillor]

Yes, yes, yes. Plug.

[Andrew Ti]

I'll just go. Yo's is racist. That's my podcast. We have the premium [e-mail] I'm trying to think. Mostly just been talking about this amazing celery salad I had I made the other day. I've had it three times since I made it.

[Robert Evans]

Well done.

[Andrew Ti]

Celery, lemon, shallot and dates. Okay, that's actually.

[Garrison Keillor]

It's pretty.

[Andrew Ti]

It's a crazy ass salad. I put blue cheese in it too, but you know, and walnuts. All right, now I'm done.

[Garrison Keillor]

That's my plug, Bridget.

[Bridget Todd]

Definitely making that salad. Yeah. Listen to my podcast There are no girls on the Internet about the exploration of the intersection of identity and social media and technology. And listen to my podcast that I do with Mozilla foundation called IRL that explores who has the power in AI and ethics in AI. New season coming soon. Check it out.

[Robert Evans]

I. I want to plug at the end here. Just a couple organizations just because of the devastating fires in Los Angeles. If you are able to help, just check out water drop LA&K town for all for reliable resources of how to help people with mutual aid. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behind the bastard bastards.

[Jon Stewart]

Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jason Alexander]

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together our mission on the really no really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions. Like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor. What's in the Museum of failure and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win 500, a guest spot on Our Pocket or a limited edition sign. Jason Bobblehead the Really no Elite Podcast Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danny Trejo]

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Dreholz and step into the flames of Fright, an anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Garrison Keillor]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a husband, a father. But he was leading a double life. He was a monster hiding in plain sight. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, btk through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It was big news. I mean, white girl gets murdered, found in a cemetery. Big, big news.

[Robert Evans]

A long investigation stalls until someone changes their story.

[Bridget Todd]

I like saw what the that happened.

[Robert Evans]

An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow.

[Bridget Todd]

He did not kill her.

[Robert Evans]

There's no way is the real killer rightly behind bars or still walking free. Did you kill her? Listen to the real Killer Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.