Thursday, 14 December 2006

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Oprah Winfrey to get warts-and-all treatment

Biographer Kitty Kelley to write the chat show's life story

Samurai biographer Kitty Kelley has chosen her next victim, er, subject: Oprah Winfrey.

The author – whose warts-and-all bios of Jackie Kennedy, the Bush Family, the Windsors and Nancy Reagan, among others, have generated controversy and big sales – hopes to have this latest tell-all in bookstores in three years, she says.

"I see her as probably the most powerful woman in our society," Kelley tells The Washington Post of Winfrey. "I think Oprah has influenced every medium that she's touched."

Kelley, 64, and Winfrey, 52, have crossed paths only once, in the '70s when the future media queen was hosting a local Baltimore TV show, says the paper.

A rep for Winfrey tells The Post: "Yes, she is aware of the book. She has no plans to contribute."

There's only one problem: Two months into her research, Kelley says she hasn't come across a single nasty story about Winfrey. "So far, I don't see anything negative on this woman. ... Maya Angelou has said she sees her as a true missionary. Everybody has a different take on Oprah."

And so, no doubt will Kelley, even though, in 1997, when her The Royals was published (it described, among other things, Prince Philip complaining to friends about Queen Elizabeth's insatiable sexual appetite) PEOPLE reported that, because of her sensitivity to criticism, the bio was to be her last.

"Oh, she always says that," countered a close friend, Washington attorney Penny Farthing. "She said that after the Nancy Reagan book. She'll write another one."

And so she will.