It takes a lot to make Oprah Winfrey tremble, but even the chatshow queen and cultural icon must be quaking in her Manolos at the news that she is in the sights of Kitty Kelley, the poison pen biographer.

Kelley, who has made millions slaying giants such as Frank Sinatra, said yesterday that she had chosen Winfrey for her next work, which would include interviews with “hundreds of sources, many of whom have never before spoken on the record”.

While Kelley has spoken disparagingly about many of her subjects — she compared the Bush’s family to the Corleones — she appears to have a somewhat higher opinion of Winfrey. “Oprah Winfrey has fascinated me for many years,” she said. “As a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche.” With news of Winfrey’s childhood molestation, teenage pregnancy and youthful drug use already in the public domain, however, many wonder what dirt there is still to reveal.

The chatshow host repeatedly mines the rich emotional texture of her own life to develop her signature brand of “rapport”. On a 1995 show featuring four mothers who had struggled with drug use, she revealed that she had smoked crack in her twenties while in a relationship with a drug-user.

“It’s my life’s great big secret,” she said. “It was such a secret because the public person I have become, if the story ever were revealed, the tabloids would exploit it and what a big issue it would be.”

Winfrey has also shared with her viewers details of her rape at the age of nine by an uncle and giving birth at the age of 14 to a son who later died, as well as the more mundane struggles with her weight.

Kelley is infamous for digging up previously undisclosed details on her subjects, however well-documented their lives seem to be. She has never been sued for libel over any of her books.

One likely source may be Winfrey’s former boyfriend, Randolph Cook, who tried to sue Winfrey for $20 million in 1997 for allegedly blocking a tell-all book about their relationship and alleged drug use.

However high Kelley’s opinion is of Winfrey, few expect anything less than character assassination. The New York Times said that her biography of Nancy Reagan was “one of the most encyclopedically vicious books in the history of encyclopedic viciousness”.

Few of Kelley’s subjects have enjoyed the untrammelled adoration that Winfrey inspires among her fans. Vanity Fair wrote: “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.”

Perhaps he will be next.

From Kitty with love...

Nancy Reagan: An Unauthorised Biography (1991)
Claimed that the First Lady lied about her age, hit her daughter and recycled unwanted presents

His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (1986) Depicted the singer as a misogynist, involved with organised crime, who used money and political influence to maintain his respectability

Jackie Oh! (1978)
Onassis’s love life, struggles with depression and alleged electroshock treatment

Source: Slate, The Washington Post, Amazon

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