Woo woo woo, we’re excited, says Oprah. Oscar winer Russell Crowe is here, and as you can see it is standing room only here because the one and only Elton John is here. The crowd roar, Oprah leads them in an Elton chant. He comes onstage, they hug and kiss.

Oprah says that it’s 9am live in Chicago so the audience have had a lot of sugar. She asks Elton if it still feels great after all these years, coming out to that applause. Yes. He played last night in Chicago and he said then that it has been 40 years since he first played here and it gets better and better, and it is the people. After every utterance, the crowd cheer. Oprah gives some stats. Elton has sold more than 250 million albums worldwide, won five Grammys, earned a Best Song Oscar for The Lion King’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and has the best-selling single of all time, “Candle in the Wind.” His Broadway hit Billy Elliot earned him a Tony and continues to sell out theaters, and he has been knighted by the Queen.

Growing up in the London housing projects, Elton says he never could have dreamed of such success. “Music was something I grew up with and I loved passionately and I always wanted to be involved in,” he says. “I never really imagined being a singer. I was an organ player in a band, and I got fed up while doing that.” Elton says he then auditioned at a record company, which was also looking for songwriters. “I said I couldn’t write lyrics and they said, ‘Well, there’s some lyrics from a guy from Lincolnshire,’ who turned out to be Bernie Taupin,” (the crowd roar) he says. “I started writing songs for other people and nobody recorded them, and so in the end I recorded them myself and became a recording artist, which wasn’t on my radar. Everything that happened after that was the biggest surprise.”

Oprah says that the world views Elton as a music legend, how does he see himself? “I see myself as someone who’s taken a long time to get where I am personally,” he says. “I’ve got now balance in my life, where the first 30 years of my success—or maybe 20 years of my success—I had a great time and then I took a lot of drugs, drank a lot of alcohol and lost my way.”

Elton says he was inspired to seek sobriety by a very special person, Ryan White, the Indiana teen who was infected with HIV after a blood transfusion. He died in 1990 at age 18. “I was at his funeral, and I spent the last week of his life in Indianapolis with [his mom] Jeanne and his family,” he says. “The way they handled themselves pointed out to myself that I was a self-obsessed, not very nice person, and I hadn’t become the person I wanted to be.” After Ryan died, Elton got sober, and it has been 20 years this week. The crowd cheer and Oprah says wow.

Listen to this, says Oprah; Elton’s Broadway smash hit is the musical Billy Elliot and it has just opened in Chicago. Oprah was so excited to get the opportunity to see it- she says that it is so exhilarating you can feel every note of Elton’s passion with every song. Here is a brief look. Critics are calling Billy Elliot seductive and smashing, the best show you will ever see. Before it was a play, it was a small British movie about a boy with a passion for dance. Elton premiered the play in the UK where it received rave reviews and moved to Broadway where it won an astonishing 10 Tony awards, including best musical. Now it is on stages all over the world and just this week Oprah was Elton’s guest at the big Chicago premiere. After the show Oprah says she love, love, love loved it and she cried three times. Elton was proud of everyone, the first night went great.

Oprah was sitting next to Sir Elton who had seen it about 30 times, but they cried together. The role of Billy is so demanding that it requires four actors to rotate in and out. The Chicago Billy’s are introduced to a screaming crowd. Oprah says that people come away feeling so exhilarated, all the audience will get a copy of the soundtrack and tickets to go see Billy Elliot, The crowd stands and screams, Oprah and Elton hug.

Hanging out with the Music Man, Elton John, says Oprah. Oprah asks him what he thinks when he sees himself in all those outrageous outfits. He says that he wishes that he could still fit into them. Oprah says that she knows how that feels. “It was a part of my life which I had so much fun,” he says. “I lived as a teenager and I didn’t really have the ability or the chance to wear what I wanted to as a kid. So I think when I became successful in 1970, the just all hell broke loose.” He just wore what he wanted. “When you’re sitting at the piano, you’re not David Bowie, you’re not Mick Jagger, you’re not Rod Stewart, you’re not Freddie Mercury,” he says. You’re not running around on stage or the skinny kid in jeans, he was the guy at the piano. “So I just needed to put some attention on me.” The crowd cheer. The piano is just a 9 foot plank, you can’t make it fly, at least not back then. In those days he wanted to have fun. Oprah asks what happened to the costumes. Many were sold for charity, a lot are still at the storage place. “We sell clothes every two years,” he says. “David and I take our personal wardrobe, sell them all and give the money to the AIDS foundation, and then sometimes we sell a couple of stage outfits as well.” Oprah asks if Elton is comfortable in his own skin at this point in his life. “I am so comfortable. I’ve been with David for 17 years,” he says. He has balance in his life now. “It’s important that you have someone really wonderful to share your life with.”

Oprah asks if the fame got to be too much. Elton says that he didn’t know how to be himself off stage. Elton says “There’s so many artists that we can look through the history books  and say, ‘God, they were so brilliant onstage and then they had so many problems off,’” he says. “I became one of those people.” Elton says that he came to Chicago to detox. The crowd cheer. That’s a great claim to fame says Oprah, that could be a play, “I got sober in Chicago” says Oprah. Elton says that Chicago will always have a special place in his heart “It’s been 20 years this year,” he says. ” the best six weeks I ever did for myself. Then all things happened for me—The Lion King happened. David happened. We formed our own movie company. The charity—the Elton John AIDS Foundation, we produced a play on Broadway.”

Oprah asks if it is true that Elton and David are trying for a baby. Elton says he and David tried to adopt two Ukrainian boys. “Unfortunately, it was so complicated that we couldn’t do it. There were too many laws that said we couldn’t do it in Ukraine,” he says. “It broke our heart because we fell in love with these kids. One was 15 months; one was 3. They were brothers. One was HIV-positive, and one wasn’t.”  Oprah asks if he’s ready to be a Papa. “I said until that point no- because I’m too old,” he says. “And I thought: ‘You know what, Elton? You’re not too old. You’re still very young at heart. You’ve done everything you possibly can in your career—the only thing you haven’t done is be a good parent. I think that life’s all about learning. It’s all about as you get older trying to learn a little bit more, trying to change the way you are. And I think that a child probably would be the icing on the cake.” After their disappointment, they are still talking about adoption.

Oprah asks what advice Elton would give to his younger self. “Don’t go out with the feathers,” he jokes. “I learned so much in my life, and even the drug use got me to where I am now. But I would definitely say to people and looking at myself then: Be true to yourself. Be honest. Be loyal. And stay away from those bloody drugs for Christ’s sake.”

Oprah says that those of the audience who have seen the play, and they will all see the play, the message of Billy Elliot is be true to yourself. That was what made Oprah cry when she first saw it. Oprah asks how much of the story resonates with Elton growing up. He says that it was a different time, the 50’s, rock and roll was seen as evil. “My father never really encouraged me. Even when I became successful as Elton John, he never came to see me,” he says. “At the end, the father comes to the opera house in London and sees Billy come onstage and dance Swan Lake. It made me cry because my dad never, ever saw me.” Still, says Elton, “I wanted to prove a point,” he says. “I just wanted him to say: ‘Good, well done. I was wrong.’ But, no, that never happened.” That was why you were crying, says Oprah. Exactly, says Elton. Thank you Elton, he’ll be back to sing, says Oprah.

Russell Crowe has made a name for himself playing a slew of fascinating characters, from a hard-nosed boxer in Cinderella Man to a schizophrenic mathematician in A Beautiful Mind. In his latest film, Russell reunited with Gladiator director Ridley Scott and draws his bow as the legendary hero Robin Hood. There’s only one way to describe the results- epic. Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett plays the beautiful Maid Marian, who is anything but a damsel in distress. The story tells how the man became the legend.

Come on out Russell Crowe, shouts Oprah. The crowd scream. They hug. He waves to the crowd. Oprah whoops and says mmmmm. Oprah says “May I say you are so good at this” and Russell thanks her. Obviously he learned to shoot a bow and arrow well, says Oprah. He spent some time on it and did his best, says Russell. Oprah says that she heard that he read 30 books to prepare for the role.  “We wanted to really understand where the mythology had started from,” he says. “It became apparent to us that the difference between the hundred years of cinema and the previous 800 years of story being handed down from mythology to legend to a political tool to a tool of the church to a parlor game when King Henry VIII was in power, you know, it just seemed to us that there was something intrinsic about that story that we should maybe wipe away all that other stuff and get back to the core.” Oprah asks if he is a perfectionist. He thinks that is a silly word, he tries his best. What he can do on a day is what he can do. “That is a central tenet,” he says. “Every single day on a movie set I just get up and I try to do something special.” Oprah asks how long shooting Robin Hood took. It took 100 days, but Russell says it was a lot of fun.  He says that he has been instructed not to swear on the show. Yes, because we are live, says Oprah. As soon as he is told not to do something, that is what he wants to do, he says. Now he has so many swear words running around in his head that wouldn’t have been there otherwise… “You sort of get beaten up a lot, but I love being on Ridley Scott movies because they work well,” he says.  Oprah interrupts to say, “That Ridley Scott, can we just give him a round of applause” The crowd cheer. “He’s so well organized, and that’s one of the things people don’t understand, because I come from a simple, working-class background and he has the same background that, you know, yes, he makes expensive movies, but he ensures that they don’t cost a dollar more than they should cost. And I like that about him. I like that he’s not cavalier. I like that he knows exactly how many severed heads he has in the effects department.” They laugh.

Oprah says that there is a lot of severed heads in this movie. Russell says that actually there is none. In case you wanted to take kids to the movie, it is PG13 which is probably the first one Scott has made. Russell says Ridley made the decision early on to make Robin Hood appropriate for younger audiences. You don’t see the sword in the skin, there is no blood spewing everywhere. You get the impression, says Oprah. Yes, says Russell, he is the one that made an alien come out of someone’s chest, it gets pretty gnarly. Russell even took his two sons, 6-year-old Charlie and 3 1/2-year-old Tennyson, to see it. He took them to a special screening, “They were so jazzed because this has been in their life for two and a half years, so the nervous energy was pumping,” he says. But it took about 35 minutes for the film to start and the kids were running around everywhere. Russell thought that this probably wasn’t going to go so well. “So we sit down, the movie finally starts. Within five minutes, my oldest boy, Charlie, goes, ‘Oh Dad, can we go now?’” Oh no, says Oprah. Then the little one says, Dad, when do you get a horse? And the oldest is going can we go now, and the little one is saying Dad, when do you get a horse? And then the little one says Dad, now you’ve got a horse, and then they say, ok can we go now…

Oscar winner Russell Crowe is here. There’s a key saying in Robin Hood, “Rise and rise again until lambs become lions,” Oprah asks what that means. Russell says that he basically ad libbed what it means, saying it means “Never give up.” Ridley said he would never use that, but it is in the movie.  Russell says that it is really applicable to Oprah, and that the sword from the film is centrally important in the film. He brings out the sword which has the saying engraved on it. Russell says that Oprah can keep it by her bed, just in case. Oprah’s jaw drops and she asks if he is giving it to her? She repeats the question. To be completely truthful, Ridley Scott is giving it to her, it’s his possession, says Russell. He also gives her a long-bow. Russell explains how the English worked out how to use wood with flexibility at it’s heart. He shows her how to string it, They decide not to shoot any arrows. Oprah asks how much practice he did. Quite a lot, says Russell. Oprah loves the phrase on the sword. Russell says. “It’s applicable to anybody in any pursuit,” he says.

Oprah asks what has been the biggest misconception about him.  “Probably that I’m an angry person. I’m not really,” he says. Oprah says that isn’t it true that once something happens it gets printed over and over again. “I played a lot of angry men when I was young. I played skinheads and disgruntled cops and all this sort of stuff. And, quite frankly, I think the problem was I’m not a very interesting person. I’m just not. I play interesting roles and I put a lot of effort into the roles and stuff, but I kind of left a big gap between who I really was and the characters that I was playing and, over time, that area just got filled in.”

Oprah asks him if he thinks the less interesting you perceive yourself to be means that the more you can fill yourself up with other people, like a chameleon? Russell says. “Anthony Hopkins, when I was a young fellow, he put it to me that, in fact, you come to the gig as a vanilla slice, and you don’t say, ‘What is it that’s special about me that I can bring to the character?’ You say, ‘What is it that the character needs?’”

Oprah asks abut Cate Blanchett. “When we started to reshape the story, we needed a Marian who had to be an individually strong woman,” he says. “The thing about Cate, you see the characters that she plays and I think the assumption about Cate is that for some reason she’s not a warm person. But I can tell you that that’s not true.” After a hard day’s work she is the first person to put her feet up and grab a vodka and have a chinwag. This is essential in a job like this, it informs the collaboration, talking about what you are going to do next. Their love on-screen took some time to build, based on Robin passing the tests that she sets for him.

Speaking of love, says Oprah, Russell has been married to his wife, Danielle, for seven years, and they have two little boys who didn’t exactly love the movie. They haven’t see the movie, says Russell. They laugh. Oprah says that every father has a dream for his family, what is Russell’s?”The father’s job.. ultimately, apart from loving them and taking care of them,  is to fill them full of the confidence that they need to deal with the world by themselves,” he says. You have to set them up for the time when they are not with you. Bit for him really, “It’s whatever makes them happy. That’s what it’s got to be. You try and provide for them, be there for them, you give your time over to them. In fact, you be the person that they want you to be.” You do give your time over to them, says Oprah. They are spectacular kids, he says. Oprah asks what have they taught him lately, other than humility? “Just the other day, I was doing Lego with my son Charlie, and it was a Lego piece that was actually his little brother’s, and I watched him get impatient with his little brother and start putting the thing together himself. So I kept going: ‘Hey, Charlie, this is Tenny’s thing. We’re helping him, but we’re not making it,’” he says. “And only a few minutes later when both of them were distracted I found myself putting the thing together and I went: ‘Oh! He gets it from me.’” They laugh.

With a chorus of real people ready to sing their hearts out, here is the one and only Sir Elton John. He sings Tiny Dancer. The crowd sing and sway with glow sticks. The lyrics are shown in the studio on monitors and are displayed on the TV screen. The crowd cheer when he finishes. Oprah stands alongside Elton at the piano on stage and says very nice up there. Am I on TV now she asks? Oh I am, how happy are we? Sir Elton has agreed to sign the No Phone Zone Pledge, thank you Sir Elton. Go see Billy Elliot. Being the music man that he is, Elton says that he can turn any words into music. Let’s see him do that with the No Phone Zone Pledge, says Oprah. He takes the pledge and plays the piano, singing the lyrics to the pledge. He stops to say that he can’t see it because he doesn’t have his reading glasses.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Oprah and Elton John sat together at the Chicago premiere of Billy Elliot and cried.

Elton John got sober in Chicago twenty years ago.

Elton John feels that having a child would be the icing on the cake of his life.

Russell Crowe thinks that the term perfectionist is silly.

Russell Crowe considers himself to be uninteresting and not angry.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Elton John and Russell Crowe are Oprah’s special friends.

It’s Friday. He’s one of country’s biggest superstars, a self-described hillbilly rockstar; one of his biggest hits is called  She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy. Fans just love this good old boy from Tennessee, take a look. Kenny Chesney started playing music seriously in college when he got a guitar for Christmas and practiced hard hoping that one day he’d hear one of his songs on the radio. We all know how that turned out- he is now country music’s biggest star with 8 Entertainer of the Year Awards and 30 million albums sold. He has sold more concert tickets than any other person on the planet. He hopes to get even closer to his legions of loyal fans by singing his heart out and sharing his thoughts in his new movie, “Kenny Chesney Summer in 3D.” For all you Chesney nuts, this one is for you, coming to theaters on April 21st.

Yay! Shouts Oprah, Kenny comes into the studio and the crowd scream. He shakes some hands on his way in and hugs with Oprah. The crowd keep screaming. We ought to make this a ritual, says Oprah, you were here last year for your birthday and now you’re here again. It’s been almost a year, says Kenny. How’s the year been, asks Oprah? It’s been great says Kenny, there’s been a whole tour and he got off the road in September and thought he’d take a year off, but not only is he in the film but he made it. And you have to be present for that, says Oprah. Yes. Kenny says that he and his fans have a unique relationship, its a very unique love affair. The crowd whoop. Oprah says that it is an interesting thing; she feels the same way, that she has a relationship with her fans. Kenny says that there are a large number of people who grew up with him and were there when there was nothing. He watched the montage the Oprah Show did and says that you separate it from your perspective and to see what that looks like is interesting. Oprah asks what it does look like to have thousands of fans screaming his name and some are throwing their panties- no one has ever thrown their panties at Oprah. When people are doing the wave and throwing their panties, how does it feel? That’s alot of fun right there, says Kenny. So many nights he wants the audience to see what he sees and feel what he feels, it is so amazing. One of the things putting the movie together was how much fun and how passionate the fans are and how much they care- it showed him how deep it really goes. Oprah asks about his pre-show ritual. He always goes to the top of the stadium or the arena; the people in the back row are as important as those in the front. It’s important to see how far he has to go to touch the people in the back, to make them feel that they are in the front row. He talks to the audience in the back row in the studio and Oprah says that they have some good seats back there. She says that she is putting on an accent talking to Kenny and he says that he doesn’t think that he has an accent. I think you do, says Oprah. Kenny is from Tennessee.

In this scene from the final stop of the summer tour, the fans get to see what they mean to KC- when he can’t find his voice, they sing it for all of us, he narrates. Songs and dreams and people do matter. That’s such a beautiful moment says Oprah. Kenny says that everything he ever felt in his life he felt right then. The song lyrics contained every emotion and he couldn’t sing. He and everyone knew that this was going to be it for a while, he wasn’t going to tour as much, and he was so exhausted he didn’t know if he could continue, but he feels different now.

Oprah asks is he has time for relationships when music is his life- is that why his relationship with Renee Zellweger failed? Yes, that and he panicked. Kenny looks at his life as a box, at least musically. Everything that he put in the box- guitar playing, friends, career, songs, success, awards all went in the box and it grew to a beautiful house. You protect that house. This is the first time he has talked about this, he protected the box. Oprah asks if the marriage is inside or outside of the box? Kenny laughs and says that Renee is a sweet soul. Oprah says that she never married, she was relieved that she was asked, but felt that the idea of doing it made her panic too. Kenny always had the idea that marriage would make him lose his identity. Oprah identifies with that. Kenny hasn’t found anyone bigger than that yet, he hopes it happens. Oprah ask if he has the time to give to a relationship. Right now, he is busy running a radio station, doing his lives and other peoples lives depend on him- people are building houses and having babies based on him not getting tired. Oprah asks if he is in a relationship right now, then calls him on it when he glosses over the question. Yes he is.

They show a clip from the movie celebrating his grandmother’s first ever flight- on her grandson’s airplane. Oprah asks if he has any dreams left, if he has new dreams. He’d like to get better, have a kid. Oprah says it’s interesting that he said he’d like a kid, as he can have one any time. Would he like to settle down? Does that cause him anxiety? He doesn’t think it causes him anxiety- five years ago it would have, but now music willl always be part of his life and he can see himself settling down. Oprah asks what makes him happy when he is not on stage. He loves water, he loves to be on his boat. He likes to get up, put on Bob Marley and watch the sun move in the sky. Oprah asks when someone last ticked him off. He says that he went on TV once and someone asked him about Rene Zellweger. He laughs and laughs, the crowd clap. He couldn’t resist, he says. He doesn’t get mad easily but people know if he is upset. He does the stare, he doesn’t blast them. Oprah doesn’t blast them either, she becomes an iceberg.

Dr Brian Stern an oral surgeon from Columbus Ohio introduces Crystal Johnson, his office manager who is Kenny Chesney’s biggest fan. She decorates the office for his birthday, she has a full size cut out of Kenny. She has a tiki bar in his basement. Crystal thinks they are having a presentation about their website filmed, but Kenny comes on the computer and tells her he appreciates his birthday party and will send along some key lime pie. He tells her to take the day off and come meet him in Chicago at the Oprah Show the next day.  Crystal screams and cries, she says “I love that man”. In the studio she gives Kenny a birthday hug and kiss and tells him that she loves him. He says he loves her too. She celebrates Kenny’s birthday every year. This is a really good year, says Oprah. He has his guitar with him and is taking requests. He sits next to Oprah singing. The crowd applaud. He takes another request from a woman who says it brings back wonderful memories of a trip she took with her mother 4 years ago. The crowd applaud. To hear all of Kenny’s hits and experience the thrill of his life up close and personal, go see his film in the theater- it’s up for two weeks starting April 21st. Thanks Kenny.

Ok says Oprah, whats on your list of things to do before you die? One thing for Kenny was to take his grandmother on her first plane ride, Oprah has always wanted to go to the Pyramids and to officially be a teacher. What’s on your list? Watch this and be inspired. 4 years ago four disillusioned friends from Vancouver, Canada asked themselves what do they want to do before they die. With cameras rolling, they made a list of 100 things, got a purple bus and got to work. In Dallas, Ben gave a toast at a stranger’s wedding. In LA they entered a dance competition. Duncan told a joke on late night TV and they all wanted to experience the miracle of birth so they made it happen. They helped delivered a baby in Memphis. Everywhere they go they ask strangers what they want to do before they die. Queen wanted to visit her mom’s graveside. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina her mom died from a water-borne disease. She was in the Superdome and was bussed to Denver. Queen was in a hotel with the rest of her family. Touched by Queen’s story, the friends worked in a restaurant to earn the money to fly Queen to her mom’s final resting place, the cemetery in Denver. They find the headstone amongst the thousands, Queen just wants her mom with her.

Please welcome the guys from MTV’s The Buried Life, Duncan, Dave, Johnny and Ben. The crowd applaud. That’s a powerful moment says Oprah. Yes they say; they just met Queen on the street in Memphis, They found the woman whose baby they helped deliver on Craigslist. They worded their ad carefully saying that they would support her. Her boyfriend was afraid of blood- they looked like they were too, says Oprah. They said it was terrifying, Oprah says isn’t it amazing too? Yes, the most amazing experience of their lives, one of them says. Oprah asks how they came up with this- is there one master list? They started this 4 years ago from their garage. Doing this started out 3 years ago, before the TV show, but #53 on their list was to make a TV show, so they decided to just do it. The crowd applaud. Oprah is curious how many people have “come to the Oprah Show” on their list. Many of the crowd put up their hands and cheer. Oprah says it’s a bucket list- check, done that. What does The Buried Life mean, she asks? It sounds dark, they say but it is not. One of them read the poem by Mathew Arnold in English Class and it just struck them. You have your life where your things to do can kill you, so they decided to celebrate life rather than be buried by it.

The boys from The Buried Life took to the streets of Chicago two days ago. It’s windy, they ask strangers what they want to do before they die. Eventually they meet Tamika a mom of two working in Ben and Jerry’s on Navy Pier. Her dream is to get over her debilitating fear of heights- she has never been above the 16th floor of any building. She gets bubbles in her stomach when she goes above the 10th floor. If she could conquer her fear of heights she would go everywhere and go in all the buildings. They offer to help Tamika to make this a day she’ll never forget. She is undecided but agrees to do it for her kids. They take her to the 3rd tallest building in the world, the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower. That’s kind of high she says, they have big hugs. She thinks it is too high. They say they understand that this is a big thing so they will take it slow, they take her to the 103rd floor. At first she didn’t want to get out of the elevator. Their goal is to get her to walk on the glass skydeck, overlooking the city. An hour later she still isn’t sure, the crowd rally behind her and she does it. She says that it feels amazing, she’s on the glass.

You did it shouts Oprah. She asks Tamika to stand up and asks her how it felt. It felt wonderful, but Tamika is not sure she would have stood on the glass if the crowd had not been there cheering her on. Oprah asks Dave about checking off #95. They were trying to check off playing basketball with Barack Obama. Wow, says Oprah. They went to DC and tried everything that they could but by the end of the episode the President’s Assistant, Reggie Love, told them that they couldn’t do it. A week ago they went back to DC because Reggie said that they could come see the basketball courts. They went and were shooting around and all of a sudden, Reggie goes, I think we have company and Barack Obama walks over and says that he heard that they were in town and wanted to shoot some baskets. The President said that he was pretty busy, had this little healthcare thing going on, but he could shoot some baskets. He’s really good too, they say. They played with him for ten minutes, then he had to head back to the office. That is so cool, so cool, says Oprah.

Oprah says that the technically savvy guys of the MTV Generation could be ambassadors for their generation by signing the No Phone Zone Pledge. They agree and say that they can hand them out when they hit the road in summer. They are signing all three pledges and says they know how important it is and they are happy to do it. Oprah thanks them, says that what they are doing is so inspiring and she is delighted that they have been picked up for a second season. Goodbye everybody.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

There is a country singer called Kenny Chesney who is apparently extremely popular.

Kenny says that he and his fans have a unique relationship, its a very unique love affair.

No one has ever thrown their panties at Oprah.

If one of the items on your Things To Do Before I Die list  is to play basketball with Barack Obama, your chances of success are raised if you are filming a hit MTV show. Also, he is good at it.

Likewise if four of you and a TV crew want to be present at the birth of  a stranger’s baby, write a carefully worded Craigslist ad offering “support”. The MTV hit show bit probably helps.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Kenny Chesney and his fans have a unique love affair. He even loves those who celebrate his birthday and have a life size cut out of him in their tiki bar basement.

They are two of the funniest people on earth and they are both here today. Welcome Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. They both hug Oprah, the crowd go crazy. OK so you all just saw Date Night, right, isnt it laugh out loud funny? Oprah asks the audience. Oprah just saw it and it is crazy, it’s a crazy premise, but it is so funny. Is it your first time working together? It is, they met each other over the airwaves to say hi, but this is the first attempt, says Tina. How fun was that? Says Oprah, she could watch the out-takes all day, they are as funny as the movie. Steve says that Tina is a “national treasure” somebody that he wanted to work with, he’s a big fan. When your expectations are not only fulfilled but exceeded… she was fantastic, it was great. Oprah asks if they ad-libbed most of the time in the movie. They did a lot, says Steve. They would shoot the scene as scripted because they had a really good script, then the director would have them do it their way, says Tina. There’s something that is ad libbed in almost every scene, like Steve licking a stripper pole then getting nauseous. Yes, says Oprah. Improvised, says Tina. The stripper pole scene is hilarious says Oprah, when you get down on the floor and you are humping the floor, that is so funny. My parents are going to be so proud of me, says Steve. They all laugh.

Tina, as you all know, is the creator, writer and executive producer and star of the hit show 30 Rock, says Oprah. The crowd applaud. She has a brand new movie and is on the cover of Vogue. How was the cover of Vogue for you? Asks Oprah. Oprah cried when she saw the Polaroids. Tina says yes, and you keep them. It was really fun, she says. Anything like that she goes into with no pressure- they know they didn’t hire a model so she just goes and has fun. Oprah asks about Esquire magazine, and says that cover was hot. Tina says that was fun, the dirty photo shoot was a little easier for her, she doesn’t know why. More comfortable. Oprah says that now Tina is the thinking man’s sex symbol. Steve says “Say it, you have the best response to this ever”. Tina says that sometimes she’s heard that and she feels like that isn’t a thing, because even the thinking man wants Jessica Simpson. Steve says that she is the sex symbol of the thinking man and the idiot, quite frankly.

Oprah says to Steve that we all know him from The Office, of course “and my Vogue cover” Steve interjects. He’s been called a comic genius- once you have been labelled that is there pressure to live up to it? No, you just go off the cliff, he says. If you ever invited him to a cocktail party, he would go right against that, he says. Tina says that he is very quiet in real life. Steve says that is another way of saying that he is quite boring. Oprah says that is why he is invited to cocktail parties. To be boring? asks Steve. No, to be the comic genius says Oprah. Oprah asks him when he knew that he was funny. He’s never really thought of himself as funny per se, he doesn’t sit and watch himself and say damn that is hilarious. He has no idea, really, no answer. He knows what he thinks is funny- Steve Martin, John Cleese, and Peter Sellers among others are people that he respects and emulates. Oprah asks why he thinks that people are calling him a comic genius? Argh, he err,… Tina asks if she can answer for him? Yes. Tina says that Steve is a comic genius because he is one of the greatest improvisers in the world, yes, that’s it, says Steve. The detail and specificity that he brings to his character in The Office, where it is so painful and embarrassing that you can’t help but laugh at it. He will sink into an awkward and uncomfortable moment so deeply and commit to it so hard, but he is always playing his character, not trying to act crazy, just playing this sad, sad little character.

The movie, Date Night, opens April 9th. Steve and Tina play the Fosters a run of the mill suburban couple whose lives are overtaken by boredom. Determined to spice things up they plan a date night at a fancy restaurant. When they can’t get a table they claim to be another couple, a couple who turn out to be on the run from angry mobsters. This case of mistaken identity turns their romantic evening into the wildest night of their lives.

Well, there is lots of funny scenes in here but the pole dancing scene is the funniest thing that she has ever seen, says Oprah. The whole scene just said on the page that they danced, says Tina. They decided that the characters were not prepared for that so they shouldn’t be either, which was quite clear says Tina. There was no choreographer, there was nothing. They did two takes, says Steve and the director started yelling things at them like “sex robots” so they did whatever they felt that would mean. Oprah asks what caused Steve to start humping the floor. Tina thinks the director called out “sexy worm” or something. Well it’s what you do when you hear the words sexy worm says Steve.

In honor of the movie, they filled their audience with some couples on a date including one who are on their first ever date. Where are you? Stand up, says Oprah. They stand and look embarrassed. Tina asks if they just met today. No they met in October and this is their first date. It’s going pretty well they say. That’s pretty cool says Oprah.

Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, both masters of improv comedy, had fun going off script and ad-libbing through their new movie Date Night. They show some out-takes from the film. They both got their start with Second City in Chicago. To show off their improv skills, the Oprah Show shot some footage of the audience members and Steve and Tina are going to improvise the dialogue. Tina improvises, the crowd applauds. They both improvise, the crowd applauds. Oprah hears that they have questions for her.

Yes, Tina asks if Oprah could have dinner with any person living or dead in the whole world, what would she order? Oprah says that is a good question. It depends on whether she is on a program or not, if she’s juicing or not. She would probably have Jesus over for fried chicken. That would be great, says Tina. Tina asks what is going on with Oprah and Jamie Foxx, because Tina feels that Jamie may be in love with Oprah. Oprah says that there is a good vibe, they are good friends, they email and text. Tina says that she’ll know if they get home and this part is edited out… Oprah says that it is a friend thing, but that is good, a real question. Steve says that his are not real questions. “Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?” For sure, says Oprah. The second question is “Who let the dogs out?” Make it a date night with Steve and Tina’s new movie Date Night, it is laugh out loud, knee slappingly funny. Thank you.

He’s been called outrageous, unpredictable and politically incorrect. Tracy Morgan burst onto the comedy scene in 1996 when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and his popularity soared with his hilarious impersonations from Star Jones to Maya Angelou. Now he is getting Emmy nods for his role as the pampered impulsive TV actor he plays on 30 Rock. Making his Oprah Show debut, welcome funny man Tracy Morgan. They hug, and bow and the crowd goes wild. Oprah says she meant to ask Tina what she should be careful of with him, but he can handle it. Tracy says that Jamie Foxx got problems now, “Oprah Morgan right here”. She heard he said that to David Letterman- yeah, he meant it. She welcomes him to the show and he says he loves her. She says that he has a reputation for being outrageous, is that really him? He’s not like that in real life, he’s a regular subdued guy in real life. His humor is based in reality, based in the moment, so he’s observing but not being funny.

Oprah has heard that Lorne Michaels is Tracy’s Obi Wan Kenobi. Tracy says that he came from a world of black and never did comedy in front of white people, and he would get discouraged, because it’s really hard at Saturday Night Live. And then one night, it was about 4 in the morning, Lorne Michaels called him and saw him frustrated and he said: “‘Tracy, you’re not here because you’re black. You’re here because you’re funny’. And my fangs came down and I began to feed. …and I was like, yo, I didn’t have the burden of having the black community on my.. because sometimes that can just weigh you down. It was just about being funny and free and not worrying and exposing your flaws. Because the writers come from a different world, and sometimes you have to be patient because they don’t know your voice.” That’s why he loves Tina, because she understood his voice, she gets that.

Oprah asks if he always knew that he was funny? He knew he was funny when, he is from where Jay-Z is from- Oprah has been there – Tracy shouts that her street cred is intact. His older brother has cerebral palsy. So when the kids sometimes could be mean in the schoolyard, he couldn’t go get his big brother. So he had to learn how to make the bullies laugh, he says. “I knew I was funny when the bullies were on my side and they protected me.” Wow, says Oprah.

Oprah asks what Tina Fey has meant to him and his career. She is my friend and I love her, he says almost crying. She got your voice, says Oprah. Tina understood his voice, and knew who he was. This whole career is chance and Tina understood that he was making choices on TV, she would write things and encourage him. Oprah asks if a lot of the scripts were written with him in mind- yes he says. Because Tina partied with him and thinks this dude is funny and having a good time, she knew how to use him.

On David Letterman, Tracy said that Oprah is his Valentine. She is his, but they are having some problems because Oprah is always on the phone with Gayle. It’s Gayle this, Gayle that… That was cute, says Oprah. Oprah says she also heard that Tracy and Stedman got into a fight over her at the airport. Yes he says, it goes back to High School when his lady was messing around. Oprah laughs. This is my woman, Stedman knows it, says Tracy.

Oprah read that Tracy thinks he is irresistible to all women. Yes, it is a curse and a blessing he says. Charm, charm. All you have to do is smile he says. Look I got this one right here, he says, look into my eyes I am the black Svengali, he gesticulates to a woman in the audience.

Oprah asks what kind of woman really, really keeps his attention and keeps him stimulated mentally and otherwise? It helps if she has her own talk show, says Tracy. Oprah laughs. He likes a strong woman who is weak enough to need him. He needs to be there, they have to need each other “United we stand divided we fall, we’ve got to be tied with pantyhose two sizes too small.” Oh gosh, says Oprah. A strong woman mustn’t let him get away with too much. He says that he tries to be faithful and monogamous, he’s a man. “Women are God’s greatest creation, it would be Planet of the Apes without y’all”. The most romantic thing that he’s ever done… Wow, bought a puppy, or sent 50 dozen roses, or he might bring home a box of Calgon and let it take all night , with the best of Billy Joel, things like that. Keep it simple. The most romantic thing he ever did was paint his woman’s toe nails. Very good says Oprah, that’s a lovely thing. He tells the man in the audience on his first date, to paint her toenails, she’ll love you forever. Oprah doesn’t know if it’s a first date thing- where I come from it is, says Tracy.

One of the reasons that he is so funny is his honesty, says Oprah, and a lesson that he learned from his father is to be honest. His father was a righteous man and never lied about anything, his drug addictions, the reason he and his mom split up. His great grandmother taught him to be nice and affectionate, she gave him the affection and his father was a very funny man on a level with Richard Pryor. Where he comes from, humor is the knife which cuts through the despair, and he had alot of despair growing up. But his father and Richard Pryor were honest and he learned that he had a story to tell and it was him. His father said one word to him as he grew up, “legacy”. What are they going to say about you when you are gone? Him being honest made Tracy a better man, to thyself be true. Oprah heard that after his drunk driving arrest that he had to wear a bracelet for a while. That was his rock-bottom, says Tracy. “Death is rock bottom for a lot of people because of their addiction and sickness, and for me that was rock bottom because there was a time where professionally things were happening—I’m making a movie with Ice Cube, I’m doing this and I’m doing that and then I’m home one day and I’ve got this thing on my ankle and my oldest son is looking at me and he… ‘What are you doing? What if I started drinking and driving, would that be cool?’ And that was the last time. That was it.”

Tracy says he’s been sober now for three years. The crowd applaud “It’s not even like I try. I don’t even think about it,” he says. “If I go to a club or to a restaurant, I don’t focus on what I don’t want. I don’t go into a restaurant: ‘Oh, I hope I don’t drink. I hope I don’t get drunk.’ No, I’ll go: ‘I want a seltzer water. This is what I want now.’ I focus on what I want rather than what I don’t want.”

The bottom for him was not being arrested but it was his son’s disappointment. Oprah did a show once on fathers, and one man stood up and said something that Oprah has never forgotten: every man has a dream for his family. What is Tracy’s dream for his sons? Tracy says his dream is simple. “I would just want them to have happiness, joy and good health in their life. And to just be respected and respectful,” he says. Respected and respectful Oprah repeats. Are you a good dad? “I’m a great dad. I think I’m number one. That’s what they tell me.” Good says Oprah.

Tracy’s movie is Death at a Funeral- what was it like to play with some of your heroes? “It’s surreal for me. I mean Martin and Chris Rock are my heroes. They’re two of my heroes in comedy, and to be able to work with those guys? It was a dream. I did a movie with those guys! And I made Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence laugh on the set.” Chris Rock is from right up the block from where Tracy is from, so he was inspirational. His next goal is to work with Will Smith and Eddie Murphy. Oprah says wow, I believe that will happen for you. “William Smith and Ed Murph” he says. OK says Oprah. Death at a Funeral opens April 16th, thank you Tracy.

It was the breakout commercial of the Superbowl, and it is making 88 year old Betty White red hot again. Betty has been making people laugh for more than 6 decades. She’s best known as the sex-crazed Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as The Golden Girls’ sweetly naive Rose Nylund. Betty’s big comeback began in 2009. Playing opposite Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal, Betty stole the show as a brutally honest, rain-dancing granny. A whole new generation of fans crated a massive Facebook campaign to land Betty a Saturday Night Live hosting gig. Guess what? It worked, yay Betty. Yay Betty shouts Oprah as Betty joins her live by Skype. Yay Betty. So Betty, hi, how are you? says Oprah. “I couldn’t be better thank you very much and thank you for the invitation” says Betty. Oprah asks how she feels “The silly part about everything is that I didn’t know I’d been away, and then all of a sudden that Snickers commercial kind of turned a lot of other things on,” she says. “Now I’m busier than I’ve ever been.”

You are 88, you look great and you have tons of energy, what’s your secret? asks Oprah, are you juicing or something? No, she’s blessed with good health and she loves what she is doing, and the Saturday NIght Live thing she doesn’t know where that came from. Actually she started it herself, she jokes. Lorne Michaels told her that he didn’t have her on Saturday Night Live because she’s white, but because she is funny. Oprah laughs, that is so good she says. The crowd applaud. Oprah asks if the whole SNL campaign surprised her? Totally, says Betty. “First of all, it’s a young people’s show, and it’s all the young humor and stuff. And I’m a little past that—just a little,” she says. “I think they’ve lost their minds if they have an 88-year-old woman doing the show. But what do they know?”

She’s hosting in May in New York and the very next day, she starts her new series, Hot in Cleveland for TV Land. So it’s going to be a busy kind of May.

Betty has starred in some of the most beloved television shows of all time, Oprah says that her favorite sit com of all time was The Mary Tyler Moore Show and of course she was on Golden Girls, another great show with a great cast. Oprah asks which was her favorite character to play. Betty says that it is a toss up between the “neighborhood nymphomaniac” Sue Ann Nivens and Rose. Rose was not dumb, she was “terminally naive.” Betty would have to say she had the most fun playing Rose on The Golden Girls. “I was on every week there, and with Mary, I just did like six or seven shows out of twenty two,” she says. “So it was more fun to play with those other wonderful gals every week.”

Oprah says that people still think of Betty as Rose, is there a part of her that still has a little of that Rose-ness in her? Betty likes Rose because she thought life was like a musical comedy. It was going to have a happy ending no matter what ever happened. The “neighborhood nymphomaniac” Sue Ann Nivens was great fun to play. She used to ask her husband, Allen Ludden, ‘How close to Sue Ann is Betty?’” she says. “He’d say, ‘Well, she’s actually the very same character except she can’t cook.”Oprah laughs.

Looking toward her future, Betty says she consults her to-do list—not a bucket list. People always ask her if there is something that she’d like to do that she hasn’t yet done. No matter how the question is framed, her answer is always “Robert Redford”. The crowd applaud, and Oprah asks Betty if she wants to do Robert Redford. Betty says that we don’t get technical about it. “Bless his dear heart, he’s heard me take his name in vain for decades. And he wrote me a very sweet congratulation note when I got the Lifetime Achievement Award from SAG. I was thrilled. I haven’t stopped ringing his doorbell since.” Oprah laughs and asks if she has anything else to do on her to-do list. Betty thinks that what she has will keep her pretty busy. Oprah says that doing Robert Redford will keep her tied up for a while. It’ll keep me happy too, says Betty

Her life is blessed “My life is divided in two parts—half animal work and half show business,” she says. “So when you’re lucky enough to be doing the two things you like best, that is my to-do list. It’s such a blessing.” Wonderful, says Oprah, you are an inspiration and a national treasure. We’ll watch you on Saturday Night Live in May. Thank you.

So, April 30th is going to be National No Phone Zone Day. Everyone is going to be talking about it, they’re taking it to the streets and want you to be part of it. Tune in on April 30th for an Oprah event to help stop texting and talking on the phone while driving. Betty White and Tracy Morgan have agreed to take the pledge. Tracy says pull over, Betty says that she couldn’t agree with it more. Thanks everybody.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Licking a stripper pole made Steve Carrell nauseous.

When someone shouts “sexy worm”, that means hump the floor.

If Oprah could eat a meal with anyone in the world alive or dead, she’d have fried chicken with Jesus.

Tracy Morgan says that where he comes from, humor is the knife which cuts through the despair, and he had alot of despair growing up.

Betty White really wants to cross Robert Redford off her to-do list.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:
Steve Carrel and Tina Fey improv-dance spectacularly well when instructed to be “sex robots” and to do the “sexy worm”.

What if you found out your great-great-great grandmother was a queen? What is you were related to the Founding Fathers? What if Albert Einstein was your fourth cousin? It’s life changing, Oprah has to tell us. To trace back your family history. She has to say, when it happened to her, it was absolutely empowering to know the journey of her entire family.

Former Friends star, Lisa Kudrow follows celebrities as they dig up their family histories on her new reality TV show. Welcome Lisa. The crowd applaud. Usually when people say who do you think you are, it is sarcastic, says Oprah. Snarky, agrees Lisa. Lisa first discovered the show while working in Ireland. “It was riveting, and I just felt like, ‘Well, why don’t we get to have a show like this here?”. Here’s a peak, take a look.

Emmitt Smith, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Susan Sarandon, Lisa Kudrow and Brooke Shields learn about their roots and learn even more about themselves along the way in the new show, Who Do You Think You Are?. Sarah Jessica Parker says most of us see who we are in the mirror, and how do you fit that information into your world. She went into this feeling no link to the past, she was terribly wrong and has buckets of questions. She is told her relative has something to do with the Salem Witch Trials. She finds it terrifying, and incredible. Brooke Shields discovers that the most powerful king of all time, Louis XIV is her cousin. Matthew Broderick learns that his grandfather was in Gettysburg. He says it’s like discovering that you are different than you thought. Susan Sarandon could never figure out what happened to her grandmother- she was a showgirl. Spike Lee meets his cousins. Emmitt Smith’s great great great grandfather was a slave. On this extraordinary trip into their pasts, celebrities find out their history and learn more about themselves. “It’s changed everything about who I thought I was,” Sarah Jessica says. “Everything.”

Oprah asks Lisa about her family history. Lisa met someone that she thought was dead, he had survived the holocaust and joined the Polish navy and came to Brooklyn to tell her parents that all their family from the village had died. They begged him to stay but he didn’t. Lisa thought that she was going to find out how he died, but instead she found him alive. It was like a miracle. Her Dad’s parents were both Eastern European Jews. “Most American Jews from Eastern Europe, they have a Holocaust story,” she says. “I wanted to find out my family’s story.” One day, Lisa sat down with her father, Lee, to find out more. After World War II, Lee says a distant relative showed up at his Brooklyn home to relay tragic news. His name was Yuri Barudin. “Yuri told our family that he was playing in the woods, and he could see that the Nazis were shooting, and he was watching his family being cut down by the Nazis,” Lee says. “They killed all the Jews in town. My grandmother was one of them.” Lisa says the story of how her great-grandmother Meri Mordejovich died still haunts her father. “He was a child when this relative came over,” she says. “I want to find out exactly what happened to my great-grandmother’s family.” Lisa’s emotional journey continues in Eastern Europe, in the the town that that the massacre took place. She flew to Ilya, Belarus, the town where her great-grandmother lived and died, to piece together the past.

Local historians helped Lisa find records that documented her great-grandmother’s murder. Next to Meri Mordejovich’s name, the ledger stated that she was a Jewish housewife from Ilya who’d been killed and burned. ”I knew my great-grandmother was murdered,” Lisa says. “But to hear the words ‘killed and burned,’ that’s worse than I thought.” Then, Lisa visited the place where her great-grandmother and countless others were shot and buried. They were made to approach the edge of the pit in small groups of two or three, then they were shot and the next group came up. “How do you prepare for the last moment of your life, knowing what’s coming?” Lisa says. “You watch the people before you and know that’s your fate, while you’re naked and humiliated and waiting for your turn to get shot.” Those poor parents with their children. Lisa’s grandmother had her grandchildren around, that is so hard.

Oprah asks what it does for you to find out where you come from. Intellectually, Lisa says she knew, but it was at an emotional distance. In some way, she was a little proud of herself, what she went through.  “I’m delivering their story to people, and they’re not forgotten,” she says. “Now, there are witnesses.”

Oprah say that she came from a woman who had built a school at a time when black people weren’t supposed to read. The fact that you came from that gives you a sense of power and pride.  Lisa met a 94 year old woman who asked about her white teeth, and then said are you from America, are you rich? It was the first time that Lisa was able to say yes I am, without any shame.

More celebrities are discovering this for themselves in the new reality series Who Do You Think You Are? Here’s what Brooke Shields discovered. Her father died in 2003 and no one spoke much of his side of the family, they were aristocrats. A genealogist traced her family tree. In Rome, she discovered that her father’s family were among the most influential families in Rome. She reals at the family house, can you imagine living there? It’s a palace. A professor from the University of Rome shows her inside the summer residence. She sees the wedding certificate that tells her that there was a French relative. Brooke Shields says that part of her is so French, she studied French Literature at college. She goes to the French countryside to see where he started, a marked contrast from the opulence of his Italian residence. The top of the family tree shows an intriguing French figure, Marie, who was born in the Louvre. Her father was Henry IV. She goes to the chamber containing Henry IV”s heart, which she touches. She feels awestruck.

Oprah says that awestruck is the term. Lisa explains that there are other connections, around 950BC, the royals had records that far back so you can trace it.

Emmitt Smith, NFL great and Dancing With The Stars legend is in the studio. Welcome back says Oprah. A few weeks ago, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He says that it was a special moment that he couldn’t prepare himself mentally for the opportunity, but he couldn’t wait. It was a unique experience. His father told him something crazy- just before they called his name, his father said that he never went to college because his mom got sick, so Emmett is living his father’s dream. All Emmett could think was he is living his own dream, his fathers dream and fulfilling God’s purpose for his life. That’s amazing says Oprah.

Emmett followed his roots to Burnt Corn, Alabama, the town where his great-grandmother was born. “I feel like a detective on a hunt trying to find clues,” he says. In Burnt Corn, Emmitt wandered into a convenience store and asked a clerk if he knew two of his relatives, Bill and Victoria Watson. Coincidentally, Joe, the clerk, turned out to be Emmitt’s second cousin. Emmitt also learned that his great-great-grandmother, Victoria, had an unusual maiden name—Puryear. Genealogist Marjorie Sholes told Emmitt that “Puryear” was probably the name of a slave owner. “African-Americans, at the end of the Civil War, sometimes picked the names of their last slave owner,” she says. Emmitt went in search of Victoria’s parents’ names. In an old ledger, Marjorie found a man named Prince Puryear who was described with the letter “m,” which meant mulatto. “Specifically, black/ white race,” she says. They also discovered that Prince’s mom was a woman named Mariah. “Now, I know that Prince was mixed race and born into slavery,” Emmitt says. “If Mariah was his mother, could she be the link between the black and the white side of my family?” This is a story that’s getting good, says Emmitt.

Records show Prince and his mother Mariah were owned by a notorious slave trader called Alexander Puryear. They went to a cemetery where the black people were buried out back in a wooded area. His great, great, great grandaddy is somewhere in the woods, it is sad that he can’t go visit the gravesite which has been worn away over the years. Alexander Puryear trafficked slaves from Virginia to Alabama. In Mecklenburg, Virginia, Emmitt comes across Puryear’s Tires and Puryear’s Florist. Virginia historian John Caknipe said Samuel Puryear, Alexander’s father, might be the link to Mariah. To find out for sure, John selected a book of old deeds from a shelf. The number on the book was 22—the same number Emmitt wore on the football field for 15 years.

“I’ve been wearing jersey number 22 since college,” he says. “Maybe it is my destiny, and I’ve always believed I was a child of destiny, but, whew, this is … it’s making me a little bit nervous.” Oprah believes that there is no such thing as coincidences. Emmett agrees, that was one of the weirdest moments for him, the book was like walking into his first Superbowl. He was anxious, but thrown by the fact that it was in deed book 22. Of course it was, says Oprah. She asks how it was to find out about his family history, how did it change his view of himself? He likes to think of himself as a humble person with a warrior’s spirit and heart. But to find that his people were treated as property was hard. Oprah keeps a document in her living room where slaves are listed with the other property of the household. She passes it everyday to remind herself where she came from. And where you want to go, says Emmitt. To see people looked upon as cattle, passed down with artifacts was heartbreaking.

Oprah says that he had a heartbreaking moment looking at marriage records., while sitting on the porch of an old slave quarters in Clayborn, Alabama. There was a trail from Virginia to Louisiana given by the Government to transport goods. “That house down in Clayborn is where I started to put things together,” he says. “And right then and there, I sensed that my ancestors were crying out to me because they were lost for so many years, and here, their great-great-grandson is going on the journey to find who they were.”

Wow, that’s powerful, says Oprah. While Emmitt sat on the porch, it started to rain. “It was coming to me all at one time, and it was incredible,” he says. “Often times, people want closure, and I felt like my folks did not have closure. At that time, when I found that information, I felt like they were crying out, ‘We got closure now.’” It was strong, Oprah knows what that feels like, they hold hands. He asks why he has to cry on her show?

Oprah says that he has a sensitive side, he says it’s his wife and kids. In the 22nd book of deeds, he discovered that Maria was raised and bred, like the racehorses. Slaves were bred like animals, but the animals were treated better. Maria was passed down at a very young age. Emmitt has 13 year old and 10 year old daughters and can’t imagine having them passed down through slavery that way.

The historian would put money on the fact that Samuel was the father of Maria. He thinks that Alexander was trafficking slaves and Samuel recognized that Maria was his sister, was family. It is likely her birth was a rape. Samuel was cold and heartless but related to Emmitt. Emmitt says he’s glad that his heart is not like Samuel’s. Wow, says Oprah. It’s amazing says Emmitt. Emmitt says he’s even more thankful for the power of progress. “I thank God for people who stood up for equality for all of us,” he says. For those who opened doors to allow usto do what we are now able to do.

Oprah was so struck by coming from a people who had nothing, from which they could make something. Which meant if they could do that, God only knows what she could do. The potentials are endless, Maria could never have imagined that Emmitt would be a Hall of Famer. He feels he’s standing on the shoulders of giants, people who sacrificed so much of their lives for our freedoms, he feels the same way about the US military. The luxuries of living in freedom. He says that everyone must go do this themselves. Unless you step back in that time warp, it is critical; this will help you appreciate the visions and struggles of the past and define your vision of going forward. He knows who he is and who he wants to be, and he knows what his role and responsibilities are to his family, country, state and city, and those folks right there [family photograph]. Oprah says what a beautiful family. Oprah thanks Emmitt and Lisa and encourages everyone to watch the show.

Oprah says that we have to talk to her good friend Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor, about genealogy. You may recall his confrontation with a police officer at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Dr. Gates was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. His arrest sparked a racially fueled national uproar, which led to the first-ever White House Beer Summit. President Barack Obama, Dr. Gates and the arresting officer, James Crowley, sat down over mugs of beer and talked out the conflict. Since then, Dr. Gates says he and Officer Crowley have developed a really good relationship. In fact, Dr. Gates says he and Officer Crowley are more than friends. After asking Officer Crowley to take a DNA test, Dr. Gates discovered they’re distant cousins. “He and I descend from the same Irish ancestor,” Dr. Gates says. “Eight percent of the men in Ireland have our identical DNA, and we all descend from King Niall of the Nine Hostages. It was good to be the king—the guy slept with everybody in the kingdom.” Regis Philbin also shares the same ancestor, a bloodline that dates back to 450 A.D. Dr. Gates says Officer Crowley recently gave him the handcuffs used in his arrest. “They have his name, Crowley, etched on them,” Dr. Gates says. The handcuffs will be donated to the new emerging Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015. Oprah thanks him, she’s on the board.

As Officer Crowley and Dr. Gates discovered, it’s a small world. Despite our different races, religions and cultures, family trees intertwine, and humans are, ultimately, connected. This fact is proven in Dr. Gates’ new PBS series, Faces of America.

When Oscar-winning actors, Olympic Games medalists and celebrated musicians allowed Dr. Gates to trace their roots, many were surprised by the results. These celebrated people think they know were they come from, but they are getting all new knowledge.

Actress Eva Longoria always thought of herself as a Mexican-American, but a DNA test showed that she’s actually 70 percent European, 27 percent Native American and 3 percent African. “To know that I have a majority Spanish blood is a little…you know, I’ve been so proud of being Mexican—Mexican from Mexico,” she says. “To know that that’s not really who I am.” ”It’s not only who you are,” Dr. Gates says.

Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic Gold Medallist finds out that her grandfather fighting in the US Army was the only Japanese man fighting Japan in his unit. In the New York Times it said that he was promoted for being unquestionably the best soldier in the unit.

Cutting-edge DNA research also leads to some surprising family connections. Eva finds out she’s related to Grammy-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and actress Meryl Streep discovers she’s linked to director Mike Nichols, a man she’s worked with on four films. Meryl laughs and says it’s ridiculous. They are great friends, they are very close.

Dr Gates says that the test is not available commercially. Oprah says that she was one of the pioneers. Dr Gates says yes, with Quincy Jones. In fact, he got the idea in 2000 at Quincy’s house because Quincy was into doing family trees. Dr Gates says he has the greatest job in the world, bringing people back from the past. Letting people see them and meet them and encounter shadows from the past.

Dr Gates wanted a Jew and a Muslim on the show to discover where their genealogy may intersect. Dr Oz discovers that he shares the same common ancestry as Mike Nicholls, who is a Russian Jew. Dr Oz finds this information to be  life changing; Jews and Muslims must recognize how integrated that they really are. The only thing separating them is the way that we think about things.

Oprah says that we are all connected. 50,000 years ago all of our ancestors were walking around in East Africa. If there was a garden of Eden, it would be in Africa. It’s hard for some Southerners to face, says Oprah. Yes, it’s a scientific fact, says Dr Gates. We have common ancestors; in Dr Oz and Mike’s case, they had a shared grandfather around 9000 years ago.

In the year 1767, a man sat down and did his family tree and picked the generational names for the next 60 generations after his death. In Yo Yo Ma’s name, Yo is a generational name, his sister is called Yo too. They joke about Yo This, Yo That, Yobama. The family tree goes back to 1217 and is the property of one of Yo Yo Ma’s distant cousins. In the 60’s Mao ruled that all things old should be destroyed. The document was hidden in the wall, and forgotten about. 4 years ago the cousin renovated his kitchen and found the forgotten family tree. The guy almost threw it away. It is made of bamboo which can be boiled and restored. They had it replicated and showed it to Yo Yo Ma.

How can people watching at home discover their ancestors and follow their family tree?  Dr. Gates says there are two ways to get started. You can log on to websites like Ancestry.com, which has a monthly subscription fee, and search a database for distant relatives. Dr. Gates says the second option is your local genealogical society. “I live in Cambridge, as you know, where it’s the New England Genealogical Society. You can walk in off the street. There’s one in New York,” he says. “They’re all over the country.”

He says that the Temple of Delphine in Ancient Greece’ s motto was Know Thyself. In the series, Dr Gates says, Know Thy Past, Know Thy Self.

The new series airs on PBS, check your local listings, or watch it in full online at PBS.org.

After California introduced the hands free cellphone law last year, in 6 months they have seen a 20% reduction in fatalities and collisions. That means there has been 700 fewer deaths and up to 100,000 fewer collisions in one state. Everyone stop texting and talking on the phone in the car. Take the pledge, Know Thyself. Thank you.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Oprah believes that there is no such thing as coincidences.

Oprah says that we are all connected

Everyone comes from East Africa, despite what some Southerners may like to think.

Eva Longoria and Yo Yo Ma share a common ancestor.

Meryl Streep shares a common ancestor with director Mike Nichols, a man she’s worked with on four films.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Celebrities are just like us. Some of them are even related. They have famous, important relatives too.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Oprah.  Oprah walks onstage at the Kodak Theater .Nice to see you, she says, hooray for Hollywood. You can feel it in the air, right. Oscar history was made last night here in the Kodak Theater.

For 8 months she turned down the role of her life. Last night she won an Oscar for her role in that performance. Watch this. Sandra Bullock accepts the Oscar. Please welcome, this years Academy Award Winner for Best Actress, Sandra Bullock.  She says she never left the theater, she stayed here and drank then changed her clothes. Really she went and slept for 2 hours. Oprah asks if she was prepared to win this, even though she was favorite and has won other awards. No, says Sandra, up until that point, nothing in her career has led to this moment, all her films have been good personal choices but nothing like this. Oprah says she liked Sandra’s comment do I really deserve this or did I just wear you all down? Sandra says that you feel that you don’t know if you are worthy of it. Oprah asks about the kiss with Meryl Streep. Sandra says that they have a thing and why is it so hard to believe that Meryl may be attracted to her? In this business, they pit women against each other all the time, they don’t do that to the men, and Sandra wondered how do they diffuse this? She decided to kiss her- take the humor. Oprah says that’s so interesting and that speaking to Meryl last night, she said some of the same things, her love for the others and the camaraderie. Sandra says that they became a sorority this last few months. They are all so different, how do you pick one? So she is just the representative for all five of them. Look at Gaby and Kerry who just started out.  Oprah says she loved when Sandra pointed at her husband and said I have that. He has stood behind her through all this. Sandra says that he does manual labor all day and if he stops working then 80 people stop and a lot of things fall apart. So for him to come to award ceremonies is huge, to get him out of bed and dress him in a suit. Her words of wisdom about her mom, Oprah loved. Sandra says that the good mommas are the tough mommas. Her mom said to Sandra if she ever won an award not to cry, but as Sandra says she’s dead so she doesn’t know. They talk of her floating around up there, guiding you through it says Oprah. Oprah asks her what she’ll do with the rest of the day. It hasn’t yet sunk in. She has her Oscar with her in a bag. What do you carry an Oscar in? Sandra hopes that Louis Vuitton will make her something for Oscar. Sandra hasn’t decided yet what to do today. She’ll have lunch with the husband, the burger she’s been wanting for 3 months, a juicy burger with fries, a saucer of ice cream. The dress was special, just gorgeous with vintage beading. Congratulations says Oprah.

Nate Berkus was backstage last night. He asked Sarah Jessica Parker how the children are- they’re wonderful, they’re sleeping soundly. Sh will fly back after the ceremony, get a very early flight to be back in time to feed them. Nate says that’s so cute. Sarah says that they are worth flying home for.

Ante asks Steve Carell how he is. Steve asks how Nate is, They continue.

Thanks to the Academy for allowing them to be the only show ever to broadcast from the Oscar’s stage. The next guest swept all the awards for her soul-stirring performance in Precious, and it was no surprise last night when she became Oscar-ified.  Welcome the Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress, Mo’Nique. They hug, Oprah nearly cries. Oprah loved when the audience stood up last night when she accepted the award, Mo’Nique loved it too. Oprah thought that Mo’Nique would stand up and thank God but she instead thanked the Academy for rewarding a performance, not politics. Oprah says that lots of people didn’t know what she was taking about. Oprah called her and she said that she’d be with her kids. She says it wasn’t so much that she wasn’t going to campaign- she was on Oprah. Its just that she is a talk show host, actress, comedian, wife and mother. When she got called on a Sunday morning, she was in bed with her man and her babies watching Curious George.

Oprah says Mo’Nique’s style last night was channeling Hattie McDaniel. Mo’Nique says that she carries her. Last night was really special because she could hear her whispering in her ear. As she was going through makeup, something strange happened, she got a letter and a gardenia flower from a family member of Hattie McDaniel. (The first african American to win an Academy Award in 1939) Sitting there waiting for the nominees to be called, she thought about what Hattie went through. Mo’Nique says. “Because of her, it’s why you sit where you sit. I sit where I sit. Sandra sits where she sits. She did so much for all of us. So I’m very proud.”

Oprah asks in that moment when her name was called- Spielberg once said to Oprah that there is a moment when you hear your name and say please- did she expect her name to be called? Mo’Nique says that is so vain and she won’t be part of it. Because if she’d had that attitude, the universe would have turned it around. Oprah says Mo’Nique was so inside herself when she went to the stage, she did not waver. Mo’Nique doesn’t want to take all of that credit. Her husband and her have the best conversations in the bathroom. When they read the script he said Momma, people get Oscar’s for this if they play it right, and then she played it right. They had that conversation again yesterday. She celebrated with barbeque chicken, Uncle Anrdre’s is the best in LA. She and her husband went home and giggled. Well deserved.

Nate asks Rachel McAdams, about her dress, She says that Jake Gyllenhaal is mad at her, Jake says he was nervous that she’d fall and he wouldn’t be able to catch her. Nate has to untangle her from the microphone.

The Awards last night went out to 200 countries, where they appreciated the best of the best. Jeff Bridges’ roll as a washed-up cowboy has been called career crowning. Welcome the Academy Award WInner for Best Actor, Jeff Bridges. They all hug. Oprah asks how the last 12 hours have felt. Jeff says its like a magic slate toy, everything is clear. He felt his folks in the air, Jeff says that they are still hanging out in the theater. He says all your preconceptions go out of the window, you can never prepare for these things. Oprah says that his performance felt effortless, like it flowed from him. He says that acting is like a magic trick; it’s an illusion. He let it rip and there it was. He had such fun playing with all his buddies. He thanked his daughters and said that he wouldn’t be here without them. He says that goes in part with his wife, his family. He heard from Francis Coppola that getting married is the best thing for an actor to do- all the films are about love, and supporting a family gives a reason to do it. It gets you involved in what life’s all about. Oprah says that you can feel the love, with all of them on the stage, that their spouses are their fuel. None of these 3 on stage have the perfunctory thanking of spouses of years past. Oprah asks how he celebrated- he says delicately, he had a flush cycle and then he blew it with champagne at the hotel. He’s had about 4 hours sleep. From here he will go to a play with the Cohen Brothers, and then they’ll fly to Santa Fe and start the movie. He is done celebrating, he has work to do.

Nate asks Cameron Diaz how she doesn’t look tired, and she says red lipstick is the key so that people don’t look anywhere else.

The next winner went toe to toe with Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds. Please welcome Christoph Waltz, Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor. He toasted his big win with Quentin, who he loves. Quentin is a tough strict director. He is known for his crazy antics but there is another side to him sensitive and polite. Immensely polite says Oprah. She asks him how it is to become an overnight sensation at 53. It was still overnight, it just took longer. His phone is ringing off the hook, he wanted to get his 1 1/2 hours of sleep. Oprah asks if it felt different to get an Academy Award- yes, he was more nervous than ever before, for good reason, he blanked out completely and barely recognized his name. He was told afterwards that he was in shock and wouldn’t remember in the morning, like he was in a hospital, which he was grateful for because it is true.

Orphan hears that his 5 year old has been dressing his Awards- she makes installations with each one and he photographs them. He always thinks what’s next, but not in connection with this. Last night he thought he’d never be on this stage again in his life, and here he is with Oprah, so what does he know? Oprah asks if he’s thought about this in his life- a long time ago, when you start out you think of it. 3 weeks after you start you are faced with reality and forget about this. So if it does happen, it is a shock. He studied opera for a while and decided acting was the easy way out. Oprah asks for a note, he says that it has been 30 years so he gives her a note-A he says. Oprah asks if he has any words for those struggling wondering where the next job will come from. He says that general advice is misplaced, someone could take you seriously. He never would have believed that he would end up on this stage. He found being the mean guy infinitely more fun than being good.

Nate Berkhus is finally standing in the Architectural Digest Green Room where all the celebrities had been all night. Pretty nice, huh? It’s beautiful, he say. Barbara Streisand tells him that she looks for the time when the best director award is not about gender.

For the first time in 82 years, a woman won Best Director, says Oprah. Congratulations to Katherine Bigelow, and to The Hurt Locker team. There was another history-making moment that the LA Times called an upset. Oprah was so happy for Geoffrey Fletcher who was the first African American man to win Best Screenwriter for Precious. Clearly overwhelmed, take a look. When he accepted his award he said that he was drawing a blank but thanked everyone. Oprah says that she was willing him to speak because he had someone to thank, she calls him up to the stage for a Do-Over. He says that he was overcome and it was unexpected. He has some of his wits about him, so he thanks Saphire  for writing the brilliant book, Lee Daniels for the life-changing opportunity, Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry and the entire cast and crew. The cast showed him how much actors can elevate the spoken word. It is an honor for any screenwriter to have their pages populated by such fine actors.

Oprah thanks all the guests. Here is Matt Damon when Nate asks his favorite moment so far. Matt says when Geoffrey won. Matt says that they were in the same Freshman dorm at Harvard, and all of a sudden he’s won an Oscar, and that’s amazing.  Nate tells Zoe Saldana that she’ll be on the best dressed list because she looks amazing.  She thanks him and says her mom will be delighted and that she has a great stylist who got her this wonderful Givenchy dress. She was speechless when she saw it.

Stylemaker to the stars, Carsson Kressley, is here. Oprah asks him how he summed up last night? He says that last night was a great vigorous wow, with wow dresses. His top 5’s.

5. Anna Kendrick from Up in the Air. It was pretty and floaty and her character in the movie was so harsh that this was a nice change of pace for her.

4. Queen Latifah who has never looked better than in this blush pinky orchard color mermaid dress, one shoulder, flattering and perfect hair, perfect accessory and worked well for her shape.

3. Vera Farmiga in a love or hate dress; he loved it. This was a powerful standout dress. Vera said that she loved the dress and doesn’t care what anyone thought. Carsson agrees, he says that the Oscars are like your wedding and so you should wear what you love. He says that is his advice for everyone when dressing.

2. His wow dress, Jennifer Lopez was unbelievable, she looked amazing. Architectural shapes were a trend on the runway. It was pale pink, and she knows how to rock it; Jenny from the Block.

1. Sandra Bullock, and not just because she was here. It is a fitted liquid metallic with heavy vintage beading, and it looked like she was here to collect her Oscar. She was so modest saying that she didn’t know if she would win. Her stylist knew she’d win, says Carsson, and dressed her to match it. The cameras show her leaving, gesticulating call me to Oprah.

For more reviews by Carsson, check out Oprah.com. He had fun out there.

Oprah asks Nate if he had a good time, he did. She says he did a great job out  there and it’s a hard job. Special thanks to all of their friends at Sprint and to the Academy allowing them to come back year after year. She thanks the team. You can see more of Nate’s exclusive backstage action on Oprah.com. While you are there, take the pledge; all of tonight’s guests have. If they can do it, you should too.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Sandra Bullock hopes that Louis Vuitton will make her a little something to carry her Oscar.

Mo’Nique and her husband and have their best conversations in the bathroom. He calls her Momma.

It is a little-known fact that Quentin Tarantino is immensely polite.

Cameron Diaz recommends red lipstick to take attention away from tired faces.

Carsson Kressley says that dressing fro the Oscars is like dressing for your wedding day; wear what you love.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

At the Oscars, Sandra Bullock felt the presence of her deceased mother, Jeff Bridges felt his parents and Mo’Nique felt Hattie McDaniels.

So this is so cool because she quietly slipped behind the ABC newsdesk without any fanfare, which is just like her. “I think she’s the classiest woman on TV,” Oprah says of guest Diane Sawyer. Oprah says that Diane looks great. Diane says she once got a postcard saying that she dressed the best on TV, and that the second best dressed was Dolly Parton. They laugh.

It mainly is a joy to come into work every day with these incredibly smart people. The evening news is still such a powerful place in America for muscling up to get something done, and that’s what she loves. Where you wake up every morning and say, ‘Don’t tell us we can’t get answers.’ Yes, they will. They’re going to get answers. Oprah asks what time she got up for the morning show- 3:45 to 4:00am. Sometimes she talked herself out of it. In her sleep she had a whole series of dreams designed to talk her out of why she didn’t have to get up early and how this was going to be an easier day.”

Oprah recalls it was going to be for 3 months, and 11 years later…. Don’t invite me to your house, says Diane.

Charlie was leaving and she knew all the people at ABC. One of her biggest adjustments to evening news, Diane says, was getting used to how little time you have to deliver. “In the morning you have two hours and you can kind of say what you think, and suddenly you’re compressed to a much shorter amount of time and you want to make every sentence matter,” she says. To come in in the morning and to be able to say that this matters, like the Toyota story they broke.

Everyone keeps telling them that it is too complicated the fees on credit card bills- no it isn’t, they’ll explain it and that matters. Oprah says she’s rearranged her whole schedule in order to watch Diane at 5.30pm each day. She could not believe that one day Diane was in Afghanistan, and the next she was in Haiti, how did she do that? “We’re sitting in Afghanistan, we finished our reporting there over several days and we look up at the crawl and it says there’s a challenge in Haiti and everybody said, ‘Rebook, reschedule,’” she says. “We flew straight to Europe. Europe to New York. Threw bags off, got the other bags because one was cold and one was hot, went to Haiti. It took me three tries to get in that morning. We stayed up all night. We just kept pushing until we finally got in on this teeny helicopter that morning and we made it in time.”

Oprah said how are you literally standing up? With no disrespect to the devastation, how was she doing this with time zone and jet lag and so on? Diane has said that she needs to be in rehab for her curiosity. At times, like in the security line at the airport, she thinks that she just cannot do it. But it is just a burst of energy from what people need to know about the sheer moment by moment courage of these people in the middle of this impossible devastation. Oprah reiterates that it just shouldn’t take 4 days to get water to people. Diane says that 69% of funds hadn’t been spent, there still aren’t tents and latrines in places, and she still doesn’t understand a world that lets doctors use vodka for anesthesia and cleaning wounds, and they have been trying to sterilize shoe laces and tie up wounds.

Diane takes the cameras with her for a day in her life… Take a look. She gets up at 7, after a decade of 3.45, to wake up and be normal. She eats at 11am, she has a cucumber soup and zucchini for lunch. She goes to the office. She has to be ready to go live at a moments notice, so the first stop is the makeup chair. She is usually in the newsroom, she goes to a meeting with a congressman and puts on grown-up clothes. Her trainer came by with a yoga mat and weights in the hope that she’ll start working out again. She says that the weights are too heavy, that’s not going to work out. Lunchtime, she eats soup from home in a plastic cup. Upstairs for a newsbrief. She meets with the team behind closed doors to finalise the show. An hour to go, crunch time. She says that she is so lucky because everywhere that she has worked has been a different way of doing things. If they can make the world see things a little differently, it’s been a good day.

Diane started out in 1967 as a weather girl at WLKY in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. The Oprah show called them up to get some old photos. Look at you. “I was terrible,” she says. “I didn’t wear contact lenses then and I couldn’t actually see the West Coast. I was giving my impression of the West Coast most of the time.”

Diane’s done thousands of interviews, Oprah asks who was her favorite interview. She says the ones she likes most have been with young children with big dreams. “My favorites are when I get to go to Appalachia and talk to the kids up there. The remarkable kids who in the midst of horizons about this big are dreaming of a future as wide as everybody else,” she says. Diane’s also struck by the interviews that leave her wondering what just happened, she says. “Like Saddam Hussein,” she says. “I was asking him if he had killed people and I was asking why he had those big portraits of himself up there. Wasn’t it kind of embarrassing at the very least?” She was momentarily afraid of getting out with the tapes.

Diane’s reported from plenty of danger zones but says she is rarely afraid. “Something just blocks out everything but why you’re there and the purpose of why you’re there,” she says. “I remember being afraid once, and it was in a Civil War in Africa and some kids with AK-47s took us out into the countryside in a concrete space and I thought, ‘I’ve done this to my crew.’” Sometimes her curiosities take her too far.

Oprah asks which was her worst interview, Diane says getting celebrities to open up can be hard. “They’re so shy,” she says. “I don’t know why we think they should be able to come on talk shows. Because the definition of what that is, is to be interior and to have everything be all folded in and so that to be sitting there with somebody who just can’t talk…. it’s a struggle.” Joaquin Phoenix was a struggle, and he got in her lap because there was nothing else for them to do. Oprah had to pull him out of the Green Room. John Travolta is holding him up on strange. Barbara Walters said Warren Beatty was her worst. Oprah doesn’t have a worst interview. Oprah says when shy people come on a talk show and don’t want to talk, its very irritating.

Oprah asks what Diane and her husband of 21 years, legendary director Mike Nichols do that they haven’t been able to do for the last 11 years. He said to me the other day, ‘You know, there’s just more of you now.’ And I know what he means,” She used to have a universal expression of high eyebrows and wide open eyes which meant either I am fascinated by you or I’m asleep. She now listens to him. They have time in the evening. They cook. It’s like kids, they can’t believe they get to stay up so late and they’ll cook really late. They stay up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning because they’re talking. Even though she was home in the afternoon a lot of the time before, you don’t talk the same way. It’s that day is done and let’s really learn about each other all over again every day.

Oprah says wow they have a special relationship. Oprah says that the funniest email was when Oprah asked her how to keep basil fresh in the refrigerator. Diane was trying to research for Oprah, and called Oprah to tell her to use a shower cap for the basil. Oprah says that doesn’t work. Then Oprah asks if Diane got the thing she sent for Christmas, a set of basil keepers. Diane says yes and they go to break.

Live in Chicago with Diane Sawyer of the ABC Evening News. The lack of hoopla was deliberate- they wanted to make sure that there was no time without a person there after Charlie left. Diane says the news is ultimately about the stories being told, not the person telling it. It’s about the work, the purpose you have, what you actually accomplish, whether you change people’s lives. That’s ultimately the signature of the broadcast.

Oprah says that the first time she saw the evening broadcast, she thought Diane has finally come home. She is finally in the space that she really belongs. Not that she didn’t do a great job on the morning show, but Oprah would see her sometimes bouncing on a trampoline and think what is she doing? Diane says it feels right, she likes that it feels concentrated, she is thinking more and more. Leonard Cohen says as you get older what do you do today to feel a hero. Today she feels every day has something great to do and great to bring. She is energized and the world is a big place. Oprah says that she is the best looking 64 year old, everyone cheers. This is what 64 is, oh my goodness.

Oprah wants to talk about the horror story of this week, 17 year old honor student Chelsea King who went missing after a jog in San Diego and her body was found and now a registered sex offender has been arrested in connection with her murder. Diane says that Chelsea’s family have been incredible through t’his. As a country we are back with the question, what do we do with them. 75% do not reoffend, but the 25% who do reoffend are the cause of this great problem in American justice. The calculation as to whether they will or not, and Oprah’s amazing conversation with offenders which showed that they are not all made alike- to make that decision or to make the decision that theres a certain person  they have what is called an indeterminate sentence, and that’s it.

Oprah says that it is wonderful to see Diane and to know that she’s in a space where she can really, fully be all that she is meant to be, makes Oprah very happy. They hold hands. Oprah says that 30 year old John Albert Gardener, a registered sex offender has been charged with the rape and murder of Chelsea King. He is in solitary confinement without bail. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. He has plead not guilty to all the charges, Oprah has to let us know.

Oprah asks Diane if she’ll do the no-phone zone pledge. Yes. She will be flying back to host the news at 630pm eastern and will be wearing the same shirt unless she spills tomato juice on it.

12 Grammy awards and 30 million albums sold, all before age 30, Alicia Keyes is teaming up with fellow superstar Beyonce Knowles, can you imagine the two of them together? Come on out Alicia. Show off, show off says Oprah. What you doing girl, that is too cute, says Oprah. Alicia says that she wanted to brighten it up with a little sparkles. Oprah asks what she’s doing? Alicia likes to call it her lifestyle, focusing on eating well and having a good workout regimen. Oprah says she heard it was after watching the documentary Food, Inc. Alicia says yes, to the point where she was asking everyone if they had seen it. March 11th Oprah says they will be airing it again, it’s a good program.  “I’ve always been conscious about how I’ve eaten, and so that just made me eat even better,” she says. “So I just feel really good. I’m really happy. I’m in a great space. I feel really positive.”

She’s on tour right now, she was in Chicago on Wednesday night, Chicago was amazing they love Chicago. Oprah says that if it was warmer, the whole world would be in Chicago. Oprah says that people are much friendlier if she comes back in July, right now they are just trying to get inside out of the cold.

Oprah asks about the duet with Beyonce. Alicia says she and Beyonce have wanted to work together for years. They’ve been friends for a little while now, and were able to grow up together in the business. “They were both on Columbia Records at the same time, and so have been able to watch each other flourish.

She knew that recording her album was the right time to do a duet, so they recorded “Put It in a Love Song” Wow, says Oprah. “We had so much fun,” she says. “It was insane, and the people were just unbelievable.” They recorded the video in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the crowd applaud.

Oprah says that there are some really hot photos, did the press go insane? Everyone came out to see them, wherever they were… Oprah say that she’d have come and seen them.

Oprah says it is amazing, that Alicia is celebrating 10 years in the music business, and Oprah remembers that the first time Alicia was here at barely 20 years old she did her national TV debut on the Oprah show. Look at her braids and her tuxedo thing. Now she has sold millions of albums, and won 12 Grammy awards. Oprah says that Alicia, of all people has been able to hold on to that space inside herself and she does that so beautifully in this crazy world. Alicia says first of all thank you very much for that compliment, that means alot to her. Her family and having people who truly love her and know who she is on the inside around her, very close are a big part of that. And being conscious about others keeps her grounded. Oprah has been a huge supporter of her and her work with Keep A Child Alive and that allows her to be part of the world, which means the world to her. Oprah knows Alicia is going back to Africa- yes she’s taking five Americans with her and if you text “alive” to 9099 you could be part of that trip to see what changed her life. The clinics and orphanages that she is part of, and the beautiful people there. That is important to keep her grounded in the bigger picture. “I think really being conscious about others is a very big part of what keeps me grounded,” she says. “I’m able to really see what happens in the world. I understand people’s experiences.” Oprah says that the way to stay grounded is to take what you have to give and share it with the world. Alicia feels you learn so much about yourself, “It makes you feel good, and I feel like you learn so much about yourself. You learn that there’s more than just what meets the eye, in our four walls,” she says. “It makes you feel like kind of super fly.” Super fly says Oprah.

Oprah asks how her new world tour is going. “It’s amazing,” she says. “This time, I have to say, I feel more powerful and more strong than ever before. I feel more motivated, more dedicated, more focused.” They’re going to Detroit, Canada, New York, the West Coast. She’s calling the world tour The Freedom Tour. Alicia has a huge hit out now with Jay-Z “Empire State of Mind”. Since she was a teenager, Alicia says she’s dreamed of working with Jay Z. “When I was 16 years old and trekking into Columbia Records with my Timberlands on and my headphones on, I was riding on a train listening to him” she says. “Fast forward all these years later, and we’re both from New York. We have this really powerful song that resonates with the world, because it’s about achieving your dreams.” It’s become a New York anthem. It’s amazing, they both say.

Oprah asks who she’d like to work with. She likes to work with interesting people like Jack White, that was good. She’d love to work with Kings of Leon. “I love an artist named M.I.A. who’s like really kind of quirky and has her own style. I love that.” She’d love to work with Prince. With Prince, says Oprah, that would be interesting. Prince if you’re watching, says Oprah.

This is the new CD the Element of Freedom, where Oprah says that Alicia looks beautiful on the cover. She sings the new song, “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart”. Oprah says “you go into a zone at the piano girl, I love it”

So much fun, says Oprah, that was their flash mob with the Black Eyed Peas. Ocoee Florida Middle School used The Oprah Show flashmob as inspiration to get fellow teenagers to read. Take a look at this, it’s about something she loves.

Students hold up books and perform to people singing about reading books. That’s so cool, says Oprah,  Joining via satellite; the principal, reading coach and student body of the school. The Principal was dancing in the front of the video, it was an amazing day and she wanted to inspire the school. It was the reading coach’s idea, she saw the Oprah Show and wanted to get the whole school out on the lawn to do that. Oprah asks if its difficult to get teens to read when they have so many distractions. With their other interests, especially those who struggle, not being able to read well can affect your whole life. Being seen with a book is not always cool, and they wanted to change that. Oprah notices that everyone in the video had a book in their hand, did they go the library? They were asked to bring out their favorite book, and if they didn’t bring one, the teachers helped them out. Oprah asks to speak to Danny and asks him what it was like to be in the flashmob.  Danny says it was just amazing, oh my gosh, getting all these kids dancing and making a music video and getting on her show, it’s so awesome, oh my goodness. Oprah says that talking about reading is a good way to get on her show. Another student Alex says that it was so much fun and even those who didn’t know each other got out together and that now people are reading so much more and passing their tests and their scores are through the roof. That’s fabulous says Oprah.

Oprah has heard that the school library is outdated- it was built for 1100 students and now they have 1700 students so it needs an upgrade. Target are giving them 2000 books and a wall to wall facelift of the library so they have comfy seating so they can keep reading and reading. Thanks to Target who do great things for education across the country, revamping K-12 libraries. Yay Target. Oprah tells the school that they have to go back to class now. Watch the Oscar show and don’t text and drive.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Diane Sawyer says she should be in rehab for her curiosity

Diane Sawyer doesn’t understand a world that lets doctors use vodka for anesthesia and cleaning wounds

At lunchtime, Diane Sawyer eats soup from home in a plastic cup.

Oprah says when shy people come on a talk show and don’t want to talk, its very irritating.

Oprah says that Alicia Keyes, of all people, has been able to hold on to that space inside herself and she does that so beautifully in this crazy world

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

The way to stay grounded is to take what you have to give and share it with the world.