Oprah, Kitty Kelly, and…Thomas Jefferson? Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar on Joy Behar with Bonnie Fuller and Michael Musto

Last night, I joined Bonnie Fuller and Michael Musto on the eponymous show of Joy Behar to talk about Kitty Kelley’s new tell-all (or, more accurately, tell-some) book about Oprah Winfrey. There was revelation (Oprah’s mom won’t tell her who her biological father is), skepticism (while Kelley concluded reluctantly that there was no evidence to support the claim that Oprah and BFF Gayle King were secret lesbian lovebirds, Musto still couldn’t quite let go), shock (onetime paramour John Tesh fled from Oprah’s side in the middle of the night), and more shock (Oprah once ate two pecan pies in one sitting?). Well, I can sorta see how that could happen if you were hungry and the pies were there and you were there and the pies were good and no one else was there and you were still hungry or if not hungry exactly you didn’t really want to stop eating and anyway why should you with no one there to see and judge and steal your pie. Oh, stop judging. Pie is delicious.

As usual, the panel was good fun (and kudos to Musto for that Bat Boy joke) — but my favorite part was when we somehow got around to Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and Fuller argued that what was whispered gossip back in the day of Monticello was important historical fact now, and I made the leap that Kitty Kelley was a national treasure. Or something. Please note that we are two Canadians. Then we discussed whether the National Enquirer ought to have gotten the Pulitzer Prize for breaking the John Edwards scandal. It was a very fun segment, probably a lot more fun than listening to the music of John Tesh.