Oprah: Kicking James Frey's butt: UPDATED

Fifteen minutes into the Oprah Show (until the Bush press conference pre-preempted it), James Frey told Oprah that "most of" what was in "The Smoking Gun" report about him was true.

Of course, why should we believe him?

Oprah wasn't yelling, but the looks on her face betray deep anger.

Frey kept calling the people in his book "A Million Little Pieces," characters, which Oprah confronted him on.

Memoirs don't have "characters."

More from the Chicago Tribune:

In a surprise reversal, Oprah Winfrey apologized to her national television audience this morning for defending James Frey and said she now feels duped by the embattled author of the best-selling memoir "A Million Little Pieces."

"I made a mistake," a somber Winfrey said at the opening of the live show, "and I left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe."

Winfrey's apology and pointed questions about incidents and people in the book appeared to take Frey by surprise as he sat across the couch from Winfrey today as they had done during a much more convivial show four months earlier.

"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped," Winfrey told a startled-looking Frey who licked his lips often before speaking. "More importantly, I feel you betrayed millions of readers...As I sit here today, I don't know what is true, and I don't know what isn't."

Also posted on Pajamas Media.

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