Part Six: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard? | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

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Part Six: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard? | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
Oh god, we are finally done. Unfortunately Oprah's greatest harms, like her role in birthing the anti vaccine movement, live on.
Series Sources:
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Winfrey, Oprah; Perry, Bruce D.. What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (pp. 21-22). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.
variety.com/20...
quchronicle.co...
www.cnn.com/20...
Original Air Date: January 30, 2025
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There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
New episodes Wednesday and Friday with backlog episodes on Saturday until we catch up.
#BehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsPodcast #RobertEvansBehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsMerch #BehindtheBastardsJohnLandis #BehindTheBastardsHost #BehindtheBastardsIvermectin #BestBehindtheBastardsEpisodes #BehindtheBastardsBestEpisodes

[@minkybinker]

Please have Brigette on again!! She was fantastic.

[@EG58577]

Absolutely agree. Loved her on the It Could Happen Here episode too

[@SamuraiMujuru]

Agreed

[@Mind_Crimes]

SIR A SIXTH PART JUST HIT THE OPRAH!

[@sapphirestrm]

'Oprah is the enzyme for bastards' THE BEST LINE FOR OPRAH!

[@Vera_Nova]

Oprah is the powerhouse of the bastard

[@rainydayjules]

Pro tip, always double check when an AI summary is talking about who people are related to. My friend was looking for info on the wrestler Natalie Neidhart, and discovered the AI summary said her husband TJ Wilson was her cousin. In reality, Wilson had trained in her family’s wrestling school, which was called the Hart Family Dungeon, and so the AI took “he was part of the Hart Family” as a reason to accuse them of incest! So yeah. Glad you checked Guggenheim’s Wikipedia as well

[@zaqataq5146]

Yeah, I was talking to someone about Jaco Pastorius and when they looked him up, the AI overview said he died in 2002. Turns out it just grabbed when his mom died and put it in his place.

[@ChannelMath]

that makes sense, especially if there are rumors that they are related. LLMs also can't do math, you still have to use wolfram alpha for that. Usually LLMs will explain to you perfectly how to do a math problem, but the numbers will be wrong, because it thinks numbers are just words, so it thinks .0959 and .0595 are basically synonyms

[@simonw560]

Just don't trust the AI overview.

[@LeftMech]

@@simonw560 With my own students, I am much more tolerant of them using Wikipedia than AI overviews. At least you can typically track down incorrect information on Wiki whereas the AI is totally inconsistent

[@goodun2974]

​@@zaqataq5146, that was a sad end indeed. For those who don't know, Jaco was a gifted jazz bass player who became schizophrenic, spiraled into alcoholism and homelessness, and died after being beaten up by bouncers outside a Florida nightclub. (Remind me NOT to use AI to look up the sad ends of guitarists Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton.....).

[@bigatomicsloth3369]

Myself and a few other guys had a rocket land next to us in Iraq. It was a dud, random blind luck is why I'm still here. I look at things differently since then. I'm not special, I got a break that others didn't get. I didn't do anything to deserve it, and no god chose me for something greater. I was spared by the pure randomness of life. Nuts.

[@Zmanwarrior]

Something similar happened with my dad during his second tour. His platoon rolled over an IED in a Humvee, but for some reason the device just straight-up refused to go off. Shit like that makes you appreciate every second, and I'm certainly glad my dad is now happily retired.

[@michaelparkanski985]

Talk about extremely lucky at least once, damn.

[@kodiekulp]

most normal shit right here. glad you didn't go full religious nut. And glad you still here so I could read this

[@goodun2974]

Yup; sometimes we get lucky. Other times, bad chit happens to good folks who don't deserve it, and good chit happens to bad people who ought to be in prison....

[@sophfro]

One of my supervising docs told me, "Better to be lucky than smart," when I caught something by getting a bunch of cat scans on a patient who came in comatose. I say that all the time now, sometimes it really is just luck.

[@hiding_my_name]

I enjoyed this conversation on luck. During my first semester of college I brought this topic up and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. 23 years later I now feel validated.

[@iceteabreak]

Oprah, Kissinger, McMahon. Theres gotta be a good walks in a bar joke there somewhere

[@scottgreenberg1596]

Nightmare blunt rotation

[@madamextraordinary511]

Facilitators of Chaos

[@EvilGenius007]

The bartender says "Sorry, nothing on the rocks. It isn't frozen over today."

[@Mind_Crimes]

The Beltway Butcher & the Leaf Mơlɛster, by golly!

[@McSpice-y4n]

Oprah, Kissinger, and McMahon can’t walk into a bar together. Their heads won’t fit.

[@EG58577]

Finding out that Oprah is the o.g. Rogan just without the use of slurs is WILD

[@mikeschenk4730]

The whole idea of using charter schools to fix the educational system is the same as most corporate or American solutions. It seems like "doing something" outside of the existing system is always the best thing. The issue there is that usually the system has trained professionals who care about doing the job right, but the system is flawed and broken past the point of repair. And people would first have to admit that the problems that exist within the existing system are a part of the flaws inherent in how we govern ourselves. Digging into those is hard and also requires some admission of guilt in how things came to be where they are. Much easier to just make a new thing and pretend that will fix everything.

[@ChannelMath]

If it was set up better it might have worked better, but the same can be said of public schools. Ideally, schools should be judged on how happy and successful and good for their communities they become as adults, but late capitalism means nobody can think long-term anymore.

[@zookiethune4772]

@@ChannelMath Also corpo's owning both parties has lead to a culture where social status and financial health are directly tied to a persons vocation position in the value chain. World needs more factory workers than Cxo's though. Not everyone needs to 'learn to code' and yet still brings something necessary to society, and deserves fair compensation for it. Using cheaper than slave labor to produce planned obsolescence products to maximize shareholder value is at the core of america's problems today. On another note the wound at the heart of maga isn't the window dressing of oppressing use of slurs, it's that there's no comfortable future for millions of american workers who can't just grab a career out of high school stamping sheet metal and afford housing, transportation, children, and a satisfying amount of leisure. Give them that and they have no impossible to avenge anger that needs to be redirected to more vulnerable targets. The culture war was sponsored as a counterpoint to moments like occupy and the wto riots. "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." - Jay Gould, OG gilded age railroad oligarch. Anyway, dense and roundabout rant back to the point: If the people at the top of the public education system were supposed to teach critical thinking and the drive to improve society where you can we would see those results in some greater amount. Where if they're supposed to encourage apathy, obedience, and willful ignorance, I'd say they're doing a bang up job.

[@IHateMyAccountName]

Part of why my sister doesn't teach anymore is because of working for a charter school. She answered to a CEO (not a principal) who didn't care about class size, IEPs, learning issues, etc.

[@bradhorowitz2765]

What makes this even more insane is that you’d think Oprah, who knows what racism is like, what poverty is like, has talked about how teachers impacted her, and proclaims herself a journalist, ends up completely ignoring why public schools struggle and endorses the charter schools-schools that form their very foundation are for-profit, increase segregation and cater to wealthy clientele who are predominantly white.

[@--enyo--]

It seems to bring in a few distinct features of the US mindset. The concept of extreme individualism (and no compromising), that children ‘belong’ to their parents, and a deep seated belief the government is out to get you. I don’t know. From overseas there are many things about the US that are incomprehensible.

[@spacecat7864]

I really enjoyed the sort of “Bastard Court” format of this and the Lawrence of Arabia episodes. Dissecting a morally complex figure and assessing their bastardry.

[@alliecat6281]

"McCarthy would say 'I had to be one for my son, to cure him of the horrible spectre of autism'. Which is actually like, deeply hateful to your kid, that you're going to move heaven and earth to change them" As an autistic adult, THANK YOU for not moving past that section without addressing this. Way too many neurotypicals, and sadly even quite a lot of autistic people, just talk about how the science is junk and don't bother to challenge the **much** more damaging underlying ideology that being autistic is somehow bad

[@NavyCobain]

This is my favorite Oprah podcast

[@lizapest8518]

The real bastards are the friends we made along the way. This had been an epic series, thanks.

[@ClockFink]

I still think the most compelling note was the comparison to Joe Rogan… I call him a Bastard and her crimes are basically the same process as his, she I suppose I have to classify her as one as well? It does sound like she’s more a dangerous idiot than willfully awful though, so in terms of willful crimes (rather than tragic accidents) is that she “has plenty of resources to do it but hasn’t bothered to start applying due diligence to the people/ideas she’s platformed”, which is… one of the least heinous, as far as this show’s topics go.

[@marocat4749]

She also falls way too easy for woo and grifter which is just irresponsible, on op of just being a scandal content hawk.

[@trentonbaird8956]

Have we looked into the charter schools with better test scores? I suspect that they artificially increasing their scores (while driving down the scores of the surrounding public schools) by not accepting “lower-performing”, or “problematic” (basically, anyone with special-needs) students.

[@trentonbaird8956]

12:41 - yup. These charter schools are the devil.

[@Seabreeze843]

Charter schools are not fully outside the public system. They cannot accept or reject students (outside of size restraints, and even then students must be admitted via lottery)

[@x0101234x]

I can recall a few (iirc the Harlem Children's Zone? Was one) have a history of expelling underperforming students.

[@Philbert-s2c]

@@Seabreeze843 They can and they do...

[@HarryLovesRuth]

Charter school rules are highly variable because US schools are locally controlled within the laws of each state. The local charter school near me is notorious for waiting until the money has "vested" before expelling students.

[@massie27]

She's the nexus point for the antivaxx movement... it wouldn't have been huge if she didn't platform it. I dont think the antivaxx movement would have been big without exposure. She gave it legitimacy since it was on her show.

[@noodledragon2092]

I went to a charter school as a kid. Can confirm the higher ups were siphoning HUNDREDS of thousands from the school. It was a huge scandal when it was found out. The school went from bare bones to fancy as fuck after that, 2 years after I had done 1st through 6th grade there.

[@TheOneTrueAnthemis]

I want both of these guests back on at some point I'm assuming Sophie chose the guests and she really knocked it out the park with it

[@ItsNket]

Always love your guests, these two were amazing. Jaime Loftus is still the best, which I have to say or else she'll bury me next to her other victims, but these two were amazing.

[@djadelaney]

even if Jamie decides to bury me, my favorite guest is Sofiya Alexandra, because I sent a tiny knife to her PO box and she and Robert talked about it on the next episode she did and they called it a "knife for a fetus"

[@SavageGreywolf]

ah, a resident of Grand Rapids?

[@marocat4749]

Bridget could do ger own grand rapid thing, maybe catholic with crosses :O

[@M_M_ODonnell]

Blaming teachers for problems which are due to how schools are set up and funded (driven by politics, and _against_ the advice of teachers and teachers' associations and unions) is a big red flag for "rich person with Main Character Syndrome who thinks they're so far superior to us peons that their uninformed opinions are more valid than anything based in evidence or experience." And it's a form of bastardry that being well-meaning doesn't protect against -- it's a trap that generally well-meaning people are particularly _vulnerable_ to if they become rich.

[@sanayatau]

"If not her, someone would have filled that void"... yeah, but that someone would also be a bastard.

[@himbosuplex]

Exactly! It doesn't make her less of a bastard in this instance cause she WAS that bastard.

[@debidallacosta5736]

Unlike Oprah, we also have Chance the Rapper, who has donated millions of dollars to the Chicago Public School system. He went to the high school where our daughter currently attends, and he is a long time contributor to public education and the arts programs therein. That is a much better way to make a difference!!

[@LazuliScarab]

Not done with the episode yet but if it's any consolation James Ray just died at the start of this year, so good riddance

[@PrepuceMaximus]

"A journalist would check" "The AI overview says yes". A journalist would leave the AI overview in the trash where it belongs...

[@shmehfleh3115]

I owned a Pontiac Grand Am back in the day. Can confirm they are a curse. If someone ever gives you one, they are your enemy.

[@bisexualmajima]

1:24:22 I feel like the main villain here is (per usual) capitalism and Oprah is a perfect example of how even an ostensibly decent, well-meaning, marginalized person from a poor background can end up doing a lot of harm without meaning to simply because of the elevated position of power and wealth they were put in and the fact that they've fully bought into those capitalist values our society encourages even if they're nicer about it than their contemporaries. The charter schools really highlight the shortcomings that'll inevitably pop up from rich philanthropists trying to put an individualist bandaid on broken systems. It's like the "good guy with a gun" myth but with money.

[@varsoonhks3211]

Being intentionally malicious makes you an asshole. Unintentionally making people's lives worse makes you a bastard.

[@Hubris21]

Holy shit, KZbin actually gave me a commercial on one of your videos for once. "Granger" or something like that. It was unbelievably short.

[@lovfro]

Please don't throw your mobile phone into the sea after breaking it. Dispose of electronics responsibly 😉

[@dstrctd]

As someone who owned a G6, it wasn’t one of the worst cars ever made, the problem was it was just “fine”. It was the exact same car as the Chevy Malibu. Basically, imagine if she gave away 276 Camrys. Oprah’s description of it quite fitting, it’s just the level of excitement that’s wrong: You get “a car”. You get “a car”. You get “a car”…

[@alexbobalix7503]

The documentary on James Arthur Ray is so chilling. Always thought Bradley Cooper should play him in the biopic that will eventually get made. The documentary is called Enlighten Us from 2016. It was on Netflix back in the day.

[@doug2434]

Today I learned that eating salad is foreplay.

[@Grizabeebles]

A line from the first episode sticks out at the end: "The audience doesn't care what really happened. They want a good story." Oprah is selling entertainment and doesn't much care if her audience mistakes it for life advice. That's just a quirk of the daytime talk-show format that made her famous. Oprah has a world-class talent for finding and elevating charismatic storytellers like herself. Unfortunately, con men and grifters are some of the best at telling stories. Which made her a magnet for bastards who wanted global reach.

[@medkip]

1:11:39 "got a condom?" "no, but i have a lettuce wrap 😉"

[@isaac1670]

Don't forget the olive oil. 😉

[@Symphonia16]

59:56 Today is the first day of my life that I have ever thought about how luck literally has to Exist by definition. Like I've never thought of luck as a concept alone. I always thought of it as a magic-like force or like a super power or spiritual blessing even. Y'all are so smart. Great conversation

[@corvuscallosum5079]

Tbf people often talk about it specifically as though it's a magic force or inherent trait, so that's very understandable.

[@amberruby4896]

That's so interesting,I haven't listened long enough to hear that part yet, but I've always thought of "luck / chance" as completely inhuman. It's just the name we give to the likelihood of an event occurring or not and we can do everything we can to make something work or happen but sometimes it really just is "luck" and thats that. To be fair, I always joke about being superstitious, as my job (tree worker) has alot of things come down to luck. No matter how skilled and prepared we are. It's just the nature of the job, assess the risks and accept them 🤞😁

[@doubtsalmon]

1:04:22 FINALLY!!! Hours into a six part series, and I was just muttering to myself; if they don't even mention Jenny McCarthy and the antivax movement, I'm gonna lose freakin lose it lol!

[@benziko1460]

"Am I an early Oprah? God I hope so😂" fantastic appearances from Brigitte and Andrew!

[@Wulfums]

You're only a warrior if you spend 10 hours a day in the bathroom, actually. IBS warriors unite.

[@pogwog5309]

Why the fuck is it called a restroom I'm fighting for my life in there

[@GhostC10]

Why is it called a restroom if I'm fighting for my life in there? UC sufferer here.

[@CabelCB]

I know in Wisconsin, charter schools take any student who will apply until count day. That is the day where the number of students in a school are counted and money is released to them. Once count day happens, the charter school gets rid of the problematic students. The public school takes those students back but the charter school keeps the money.

[@bradhorowitz2765]

When I heard from from the hosts that Oprah tells Robert Reich that she didn’t believe in luck, I thought “Oprah is Ronald Reagan.” Both individuals experienced trauma in their lives which left a lasting impact on them. Both never seemed to recover from said trauma, and began seeking attention to gain the love they so wanted. Both worked their way up in Hollywood/TV and were basically, at best, average talent. Both developed myths about their lives to sell to the public ; specifically that they were not lucky, they were both poor, that they were the self made Americans who know how the world works. Both Ignored the privledge they accumulated over the years, both espoused Christian gospel/self help/pro-neoliberal ideas, both endorsed bad science in their programs whether that was inthe White House or on tv, and both were terrible judges of character.

[@himbosuplex]

"Someone would have filled that role if it wasn't her" Yeah, but... it was her. That's why she's the bastard and not whoever it was in the alternate universe. It doesn't lessen her actions, it doesn't absolve her, and she had every opportunity to do better but didn't.

[@tripleskipper4614]

Love u robert and sofie ❤

[@yourlocalnerd7788]

My highschool is one of the few public schools with no union, and they kept showing us waiting for superman and the lottery and stuff like that

[@roniusadethel9768]

59:00 oh shit? Grandfather of college humor mentioned. Did you know in Dropout's Game Changers episode "Sam Says 3" Sam Reich shows off a nude garden gnome picture of his father Robert Reich?

[@CosmicParkingLot]

Waiting for the Behind the Bastards of Sam Riech, tormentor of poor innocent comedians (this is a joke for those who don't follow dropout)

[@roniusadethel9768]

​@CosmicParkingLot So, there was a second cabal of players who were manipulating the first cabal who thought they were insiders. All for the amusement of this very sick man.

[@bw5417]

As someone who's heard way too many people excuse other bastards (like dictators) by using what-if scenarios, I think Andrew is being WAY too forgiving of Oprah. SHE DID WHAT SHE DID. This is a bit of a hyperbolic example, but would we excuse Hitler in the same way by saying if it weren't for him, someone else in post-WWI Germany would've started WWII anyway?

[@mitlaufer4798]

There are so many characters in the Oprah extended universe, one bastard I would love to hear about would be Lance Armstrong who nearly killed pro cycling with his doping confession on Oprah

[@NocoPicofromTicoLico]

All Cyclists are on drugs . Lance just got famous

[@bradhorowitz2765]

I wouldn’t say lance deserves a bastard episode. I mean…lance absolutely helped kill a fellow cyclist career when said cyclist said “yeah he’s on drugs.” But that isn’t necessarily different from other athletes who lie about drug use. Drug use in sports to me isn’t a crime, nor is it morally wrong-I mean why wouldn’t you take a drug to increase your performance if you can get millions of dollars? Honestly that whole interview with lance was so cringy. Like oprah, seriously you can’t imagine why lance would take drugs? You once had midgets on your show for Pete’s sake. You got ratings by having conspiracy theorists on your show

[@novataco5412]

Oh shit yesterday I was feeling sad I’d be waiting so long for this next episode!!

[@danilodevita]

damn a part 6. that's awesome

[@zak-a-roo264]

If Oprah truly was BADLY abused as a child , we tend to have very bad people picking skills later in life, trusting the wrong ones because we had to for so long.

[@bradhorowitz2765]

That could explain sort of it. I mean we can absolutely say for certain Oprah was abused by her relative and that did impact her. But you’d think Oprah would be more worried about repeating that mistake especially when more and more of the conmen and sexual predators ends up coming into her show. But at no point Does Oprah say “wait what’s going on, why does this keep happening.” Ironically, Oprah ends up endangering people into believing these people, and giving credence to contract theories. Something that culminates to an extent in the Donald Trump presidency.

[@markmaurer6370]

Oprah was joe rogan before joe rogan was joe rogan. Totally credulous really uninterested interviewing

[@matthewcaldwell8100]

I just got a mental picture of her being stoned and hocking supplements for like, pelvic floor function or something, and I can't lie, I would probably watch a Bro-prah. I am also sorry for inflicting that thought on you.

[@beoweasel]

11:56 Living in the Deep South, that's entirely why there was a huge surge of private schools after desegregation. In my home town of Spartanburg, the Spartanburg Day School was, for years, jokingly referred to as the, "Spartanburg White School" because that's where a lot of white people started sending their kids, because they didn't want them attending public schools and having to interact with black kids. The voucher system is really just a continuation on that that theme, though now there's an added Christian supremacist element where right-wing parents don't want little Billy to learn that gay people exist, or that Evolution is real.

[@doggodoggo3000]

My aunt took her kids out of the day school when they got a new principal and she stated her preferred pronouns in her introduction.

[@Leafeon56]

i grew up in altadena (rip) which was locally famous as the area where black people were allowed to buy homes before 1950. the burb next to it, pasadena, has the HIGHEST rate of private schools per population in the entire united states. guess why that is lmfao. (i was one of 15 white kids in my grade in public school lmfao)

[@NocoPicofromTicoLico]

I think it comes down to Oprah being the boss and her underlings never ever tell her she is wrong .

[@marocat4749]

Its also telling about her personality that she doesnt invire people to do?

[@RusselCS]

"It's wild to have a vibes-based empire" / "That's not 0% of Cool Zone's business, right?" I got into Behind the Bastards because I liked Robert's sense of humor and Sophie's chemistry with him. (Not saying they're "together" or should be, they just play off one another really well.) So yeah, some amount of this podcast's interest for me (and a lot of other Cool Zone podcasts) really just come from vibes. LOVE 16th minute and weird little guys for similar reasons.

[@Algorithmicgeneratedwordsalad]

So I remember she hyped up a book called The Kite Runner and my mom rented the movie for us to watch and we didn't realize that it was a movie about pedophilia and child sodomy and the sex trade in the Middle East because on the title it said Oprah pick light-hearted Coming of Age tale so my mom thought it was you know something like Harry Potter or something like that no no no

[@lazyperfectionist3978]

that's horrific, very gross on both her and the people behind the distribution of that movie

[@benway23]

Thank you for your work.

[@leighfoulkes7297]

I was given the opinion that she was simply allowed anyone on her show who paid a fee to be on it. It looked especially obvious when she allowed Mormon polygamist on to her show and she sounded like commercial promoting their "alternative lifestyle".

[@candaceprather8434]

Just because there would have been a "next bastard" doesn't change her role as one.

[@--enyo--]

1:06:30 As a doctor and someone who has had to write literature reviews and do critical analyses of sources for research projects this is so painful on so many levels.

[@ilkka9195]

I had to check what 150 Freedom Degrees is in Celsius, and it's approx 65 C. In Finland that would be a very poorly heated sauna. We generally heat it to about 85 C, but some like it closer to 95 C (thats between 185 F and 203 F). Then again we don't spend hours at a time in there, and the air in a proper sauna is quite dry... if the air in a sweat lodge (never been to one) is humid, that makes it hella more dangerous. Also sauna is a naked space, but if people wear clothes in a sweat lodge then that also changes things.

[@Hotshot3334]

37:30 "Ill thought out advertising ploy" Serves as a pretty charitable summation of the Oprah episodes.

[@tarttooth6022]

Whaaaaaat's lighting the street, my manifestos?!

[@Ceruleansquid-lo3iv]

i think that just because someone was going to do something doesn't mean that the person who did it isn't a bastard. Saying "well, that website had a huge security flaw and someone was going to hack it, so it's fine that i stole all that money" isn't going to get me out of trouble and definitely shouldn't.

[@feraljane]

If Oprah admitted the role of luck in her success, that diminishes her perceived greatness.

[@Moonscafe7]

Which makes her a.......

[@M-Cherian]

Loved seeing the dogs. Great episode BTB.

[@jackbrady6600]

Ray Flew, so Oceangate could swim.

[@barbs-incorporated]

I've been getting so many Oprah podcast ads since starting this. 😂

[@roshango125ab]

I'm very on the fence on the "is Oprah a Bastard?" Question now that the series is over. The best case scenario is that she's a well-intentioned person with absolutely horrendous judgment and a platform large enough where every decision has a major fallout. The worst case scenario is she's absolutely a bastard who grifted the worst kinds of people and ideas to the public. And I think it kinda comes down to how much of a true believer she is. If she invited Jenny McCarthy on knowing that the anti Vax shit was total BS but it would be great for views, then yes, total bastard. But if Oprah genuinely believed in a lot of self-help, new age medical crap, then I think she's dumb but idk if I say bastard.

[@FirstIsa]

Paraphrasing the quote able Dresden Files series: Power gives people more options. The more power they have the more good they can do, BUT the more bad choices they have to make.

[@aubreyfinn4450]

I guess for me it comes down to, she's brought back people she knows are lying multiple times? Not even just to rip into them, but to promote them? It makes it seem much more like she doesn't give a shit as long as it doesn't effect her reputation.

[@SageWon-1aussie]

Oprah is clearly not dumb. Desperate to have a global audience before going to school. Used to play act as an adult all the way up to being an adult, including being sexually precocious. Is absolutely a bastard, wanted to be a bastard, worked hard to be a bastard.

[@bisexualmajima]

Same here. imo Oprah goes to show how no one should have that much money and even a well-intentioned billionaire from a marginalized background is inevitably going to fall into these pitfalls because the system that creates them and gives singular individuals this much sway over others is fundamentally broken. So she's probably one of the less bastard-y people within her peer group and is definitely better than a Joe Rogan or any of the right-leaning progenies that followed her but that's still not...good.

[@bisexualmajima]

​@@SageWon-1aussie calling a victim of CSA 'sexually precocious' as a child in this context is really repugnant

[@shlyven5231]

Oprah was the original Joe Rogan apparently. Conquer Joe Rogan conquer the world.

[@doggodoggo3000]

i realized this years ago. i actually applied to be on there in 2019. I worked in dog sled racing and the entire dog sled industry is horrific and i wanted to tell as many people. I landed on Joe Rogan being the most effective thing i could possibly do as a single person to get word out about it so i might as well fill out the form and try.

[@--enyo--]

25:00 For the other non-Americans out there 150 degrees F is 65.5 degrees C.

[@pbnjeffy1611]

Hey! I loved my grand Prix GTP 😅

[@Levynite]

Holy shit 6 episodes

[@anthonyrowland9072]

The Leaving Neverland "documentary" she produced... It had to be edited before it was shown overseas because of the *instant* lawsuits.

[@franzfanz]

For anyone who wants to know, James Arthur Ray died a month ago. Edit: of non-heatstroke related causes.

[@djadelaney]

no better way to make me hate someone than to say that Carl Sagan was afraid of them, I remember reading The Demon Haunted World in maybe 2013 or 2014 and being afraid but optimistic... the optimism has faded for some reason...

[@MarauderMorgaine]

My mom gets weirder stuff off facebook than she ever got off Oprah. I kinda miss Oprah, honestly.

[@SeeWitch]

Without Oprah, Dr. Phil is a used car salesman in Lubbock.

[@slipperynickels]

jesus, a six parter

[@trentonbaird8956]

Haha! I read this one as: “Jesus: a six-parter”

[@doggodoggo3000]

Oprah get twice as many BTB episodes than Diddy isnt a good look

[@theMMAdhatter]

I think Oprah is a "good judge of character" - in that she's good at judging whether someone will be good at making money and peddling her influence even further

[@beverlyshields2399]

Been catching up on all the episodes, love the pod. A little confused by the structure? I cant tell if its filmed all at once and cut up or filmed in batches or what. And its framed for the classic podcast sponsorships but there never are any? I just have a lot of production questions 😂

[@FatherWilfred]

The sponsorships are shown if you listen on Spotify or another platform, and typically they do the recordings in one chunk. With the Oprah series being such a long one, I wouldn't be surprised if they broke it up a little bit

[@Limit02]

@@FatherWilfredthey all changed shirts a few times, seeming to imply multiple sessions for this one? But otherwise yeah I’m pretty sure they record the 2-3 parters all at one

[@TheVikingSwan]

I think that Robert mentioned on Bluesky that this series took like 3 recording sessions.

[@ElihuAran]

Most of the time, they'll film 2 episodes in one session, with a small break in between episodes for guests to do whatever it is they need to do. The sponsor breaks are there for when you listen to the podcast on a normal podcast service

[@beverlyshields2399]

@@ElihuAran since I have yt premium I don't get regular ads so I thought they had just preselected points for yt ads to play, but I heard them mention a few of the usual suspects before throwing to ads in a few episodes. Tbh I had assumed they just didn't get sponsorships.

[@SageWon-1aussie]

I didn't expect this to go full Frank Herbert at the end of the Oprah episodes...

[@MiraBoo]

Unfortunately, I feel the harms Oprah has contributed to (be it directly or indirectly) cannot be overstated. The worst of which, based on these six _Behind the Bastards_ episodes, includes: • the further degradation of public education which inevitably leads to less social mobility and more inequality, • the rise of conspirituality and the public’s distrust in science, • the normalization and unearned accreditation of scammy charlatans, • and the promotion of highly misleading Conservative-Capitalist ideals. Instead of meaningfully addressing any of the systemic issues that she identifies, she uses those issues to boost her ego, popularity, and profits. Oprah may genuinely have good intentions, but those intentions often appear to be just as self-serving as they are altruistic. As for her more problematic contributions, I can forgive the ones born of ignorance, but that grace does not extend to when she’s willfully ignorant or rebuffs accountability. Personally, I think Oprah values showmanship over integrity. That’s why she gravitates towards, frequently promotes, and sometimes behaves like a grifter.

[@CosaNostra428]

I grew up in Santa Barbara where Oprah lives. The urban legend us children would hear every Halloween was that Oprah gave out iPods to trick or treaters. Never found out if that was true, but some valet guys I knew worked a private party at her estate and she tipped them all $500.

[@robertmartin2936]

"Is there no fact checking?" Jennifer Toth's The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City has entered the chat...

[@BeastNationXIV]

*pins all 6 episodes in playlist to watch later while making instrumentals in mvsep 😂

[@CrowQQ]

Ooooh, welcome to paradise! Oprah Winrefrey show show, Oprah Winrefrey show show Oprah Winrefrey show show Oprah Winrefrey show show I said Oprah Winrefrey show show Oprah Winrefrey show show Oprah Winrefrey show show Oprah Winrefrey show show I said, Master Winfrey, Oprah, my lil' homie bastard Lotus on the beat, yeah we heavy in the street squad Like the whole planet in the palms of my hands low So give thumbs up for the Oprah Winfrey Show

[@Filbi]

I love how you guys spent 8-10 hours talking about Oprah and only mentioned Stedman once in passing.

[@zerogravy7446]

Extremely Petty Charity Oprah is so much better, especially if she did that stuff properly. There's nothing better than improving the world out of spite, even petty spite.

[@crystalcharee57]

Okay, the “someone would have done it” argument doesn’t answer whether or not Oprah chose to be the person to do it. Second, her audience weren’t credulous idiots. Most of her power and fame grew before the internet was a thing. You couldn’t pull a phone out of your pocket and fact check her while she was talking. Third, Oprah has an inordinate amount of charisma. She has gravitas and always did, even while covering the most ridiculous stories. I’m old enough to remember watching Donahue and being baffled about this handsome distinguished gentleman constantly ending up in the midst of adults behaving like drunken circus clowns. The tradition of ring masters masquerading as journalists didn’t start with Oprah, she just became the best at it. And I, as part of her audience, related to her vulnerability, was grateful to her for discussing things like child sexual abuse in a dignified way, and recognized her earnestness in wanting to contribute good things to the world. Like Oprah, but on much smaller scales, I have been in the position where I was the friendly face of exploitation. Unlike Oprah, the cognitive dissonance was enough to convince me to leave those situations. And I think there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is that I lack ambition and am deeply uncomfortable with being perceived. But when you’re in that position, at many points, you’re confronted with your own hypocrisy, and at each point throughout her decades-long career, she has chosen money and fame over integrity and accountability. She continues to make selfish and immature choices, and it’s those choices that make her a bastard, especially with the amount of influence she still has. If you compare Oprah now to Oprah at her height, she may seem impotent but compare her to any other person on the planet and she’s still at least a demigod.

[@joshbowdish9851]

1:14:49 - I've never felt that *atonal scream sticky note so hard

[@EphemeralTao]

"Someone would have filled that role if it wasn't her" Jerry Springer. Geraldo Rivera. Sally Jesse Raphael. There was always going to be someone, but there's also the idea that it would not necessarily have been someone quite as massively influential. Other talk show hosts did the same thing, but aside from a brief moment with Jerry Springer, no one else had exactly the right combination of charisma, credulity, and relatability that made Oprah the social force that she became. It would have happened, but not necessarily as profoundly and pervasively as it happened with Oprah. Most importantly, no one else at that time was capable of becoming the springboard for worse bastards that Oprah managed to be.

[@williamkarbala5718]

There was an SNL skit in the 2000s that called out Oprah’s bullshit that I think has aged great. It was one of these self help gurus interviewing a victim of the Darfur genocide. So I do believe that people just took Oprah with a grain of salt.

[@thatcanuck5670]

Some did. Many absolutely did not lol.

[@benjaminaristotleboes3157]

1:24:00 LMAO what seems like ten minutes ago, we were talking about wrapping up.... Now I look at the time and we still have miles to go..... Arrrrrrrgh.....

[@_NoDrinkTheBleach]

I feel like there's a very good chance that if Oprah's show was still on, she would have elevated Jordan Peterson long before Joe Rogan got a hold on him.

[@KurtisHord]

part 6 is out of bounds

[@dorpth]

Bastard absolutely. She never once went back to undo the most damaging monsters she helped create, and the priority to all her "good" was her brand and her ego instead of actually solving the problem. And once you start believing in that "no such thing as luck, only talent and hard work" myth, you've crossed the class warfare looking glass into bastardom.

[@se9865]

I didn't realize the Jenny Mccarthy thing was so recent. I thought it was in the 90s.

[@MM2isBest]

thanks orpah

[@pamellahakala5018]

Can you do an episode or series on Jenny McCarthy please?

[@siener]

Part 6? Last one I listened to is part 2. How did we end up here?

[@SageWon-1aussie]

Oprah. Oprah is how we got here.