Winfrey grills 'Pieces' author, apologizes for backing book

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Truth matters.

So says Oprah Winfrey, who made an about-face and apologized Thursday on her TV show for backing James Frey's not-entirely-true memoir A Million Little Pieces.

"I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers," Winfrey told Frey, whose book soared to the top of the best-seller lists after Winfrey selected it for her nationwide book club last fall.

The veracity of his account of drug addiction and alcoholism has since been challenged by The Smoking Gun, an investigative website, and other news outlets.

Frey admitted to Winfrey that he made up details about characters in the book and, as the website claimed, had exaggerated the amount of time he had spent in jail (a few hours, not 87 days, in one case).

The immediate effect may be that book publishers will be more cautious in dealing with authors of memoirs, says Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. "They (publishers) may not be asking for copies of police reports, but they will say the book is 'based on a true story' or some other caveat."

On Thursday's show, Winfrey also grilled Nan Talese, Frey's editor at Doubleday, who appeared with the author and claimed that she, too, was "dismayed" after learning about the book's embellishments. Said Talese: "I mean, as an editor, do you ask someone, 'Are you really as bad as you are?'"

To which Winfrey emphatically answered, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Winfrey -- sometimes contrite, sometimes angry -- said she was sorry she called CNN's Larry King Live on Jan. 11 while King was interviewing Frey about the controversy -- a controversy that Winfrey, at the time, called "much ado about nothing."

"I regret that phone call," she told her viewers Thursday. "I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe.

"To everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right."

Winfrey wasted no time expressing her feelings to Frey. "It's difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped," she told him.

"I think I made a lot of mistakes in writing the book and promoting the book," Frey said.

"Do you think you lied or do you think you made a mistake?" Winfrey shot back.

"I think probably both," Frey said.

Sitting side-by-side before a studio audience, Winfrey confronted Frey on details in the book, including his claim that he had a root canal without Novocain, and asked why he wrote that a girlfriend had committed suicide by hanging when in fact she had slit her wrists.

"All the way through the book I altered details about every one of the characters," including himself, Frey said.

Despite the controversy, A Million Little Pieces continues to sell well. It's No. 2 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, displaced from the top spot just this week by Elie Wiesel's Night, the newest selection of Winfrey's book club.

William Bastone, editor of The Smoking Gun, praised Winfrey for her turnaround. "Despite all the criticism, she could have hunkered down and not addressed this any further because she's Oprah Winfrey. But I give her a lot of credit for apologizing and being so unrelenting on Frey."

Contributing: Gary Strauss

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