People Who Gossip

0:00Through 25 seasons, 4 ,561 episodes, I believe The Oprah Winfrey Show is one of the greatest classrooms in the world. I really never thought of it that way. The aha moments, the breakthroughs, the LOLs, the connections, the occasional ugly cry. I miss him so terribly. I miss him every single minute. The moments that mattered. Daddy! The eye-opening life lessons. Never allow them to take you somewhere else. I'm bringing them back. It's time to open the vault. I've personally chosen these classic episodes to share with you again. Every single person you ever will meet shares that common desire. They want to know, do you see me?

0:47Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? You are listening to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the podcast.

0:59If you have ever been a victim of gossip, you know how it feels to have your personal life be the topic of conversation in your neighborhood, in your office, or with your family, or your friends. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and today we're going to meet people that admit to being torrid gossips. My first guest is called the male Rona Barrett by his friends. Please welcome Arthur Sims. And next, hold your applause if you don't mind. Next. Not worth that much applause, Arthur. Next, she recently went to a psychic, my next guest, and the first thing she was told was that she talked too much by a psychic. Please welcome Joyce Harris.

1:36My next guest says that gossip got her where she is today. She's known as the authority on everything by family and friends. Please welcome Nancy Scott. And next, I want you to meet a victim of gossip who says that rumors of her being a floozy destroyed her career. Please welcome Robin Chambers. And finally, Greg Vasquez says that gossip destroyed his marriage. Contrary to rumors, Greg says, he did not fool around. Please welcome them all to the show. Now to the show. So I'll start with you, Arthur. What's the last thing you gossiped about? You. You. It figures. And what did you say? Well, it was last night.

2:19I was at a restaurant with some friends, and we were talking about me being out here today. And a lot of people said, well, remember when Oprah first came to Chicago, they used to call her TWA. And I said, why TWA? Teeny-weeny afro. Teeny-weeny afro. Right, right. Because I had a little afro then. Right, and then, you know, the question came up, was the back of your hair really your hair? And I told them, sure. Okay, speaking of that, I hear so much. I was just telling this audience, I hear so much gossip. Do you hear a lot of gossip about me? Yes. Because I hear so much gossip about myself. One of the things I hear all the time is that this is a wig.

2:51That this is a wig. No. Have you heard that one? Yeah, I've heard that one. And a hundred others. And a hundred others. Did you hear this one? This is the latest one I heard, that I bought the guy that I'm dating, that I bought him a white jag. Did you hear that one? I didn't hear that one, but then I... I catch the bus and ride a cab every day, but I bought him a white jag. Did you hear that one? No, I didn't hear that one, but I think I know him personally. Then I heard yesterday, someone told me yesterday that the person who parks the cars in my building said it wasn't a white jag, but it was a red jag.

3:27And always, always, always I take a cab. Well, see, I'll know by 3 o 'clock this afternoon whether it's true or not, so... I'm telling you, I'm telling you it's not true, which goes back to another thing. If someone calls you and says, Oprah Winfrey, quit her job today, do you then go and spread that, or do you check out the source? I check it as much as possible, see how much I can really find out about it. Would you call me? Uh, yeah. Because I am the source. Matter of fact, I would. You would call me. Yeah, I'd reason my way to you. To find out, you know, exactly what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

4:01So the last thing you gossiped about was me. Yeah. Okay. What's the last thing you gossiped about, Joyce? This month or last month? The last thing. The last thing I gossiped about, well, I was on the phone the other day talking with a family member. and we both discussed another certain person who her husband is having an affair with another man. Please don't mention the name. Do not mention the name. No names, no names. Okay, so that's the last thing you guys... That was the juiciest piece. Okay. Nancy, I hear you know everything. I do know everything. Nancy lives on the... I gotta say to you, can we talk?

4:44Okay. Nancy lives on the North Shore here in Chicago, for those of you who are watching around the country. And the North Shore is the Gold Coast here of Chicago. And you have to be a maven if you live on the Gold Coast. Yeah. That's what it's about, okay? Okay. Now, first of all, I want to tell you that the word gossip, I looked up in the dictionary. Yeah. And in my heritage dictionary, it said gossip, often groundless rumor, usually of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature. Right. And a gossip monger is a person who relates gossip. Well, that's what I do. I tell about everything. I talk about restaurants.

5:21I talk mainly about the kind of gossip that people can attain, not people gossip, not to hurt people. I know where everybody eats, where everybody goes to hear entertainment, where all the single happenings are. And as a result of that, I've become a very popular person. You've got to know who to hang out with, where to be. Now, like when Sinatra was here? Yeah? I could tell you where he was afterwards, where to go see him if you wanted to know. Where was he? At Eli's Restaurant. Was he? That was his hang-up, yeah. What did he eat? I could tell you about Richie Melman. I can tell you Richie Melman doesn't, I couldn't tell you if he had a girl on the side, but I can tell you what restaurant where it's happening.

6:00You go to his, you know what I'm telling you? That's what people really want to know. They want to go, they want to have fun. Who cares about who's sleeping with who? Boring, you know what I'm telling you? That we know. So what is the juiciest piece of gossip you know? Well, it's not necessarily juicy. It's happening. Like, if you want to know where to go to meet a guy or where the single scene is. Where? That's what I tell you. Where? Oh, you go to the Snuggery. There's a new place opening Wednesday night called Giannati's with the greatest group that plays there, Lenny Kapp. You go there. Guys, unbelievable for the ladies.

6:34There's a new place coming here from L.A. called Chippendale. Male strippers. It's gonna be hot. Let me tell you. Okay. So you know where to go. You have never done vicious gossip about other people. Of course. I hear your friends here in the front row. Those are my two greatest gossip mongers. They help me out. So what, does she tell you or you tell her? Well, I think it's kind of equal. Yeah. I mean, we do gossip. You see, the first thing... That's right. She says we gossip about everything, everybody, everybody, every place. And she's right. She knows all the openings. Oprah. She knows all the closings.

7:14Two key things. What? You got to be smart. You always take a broad with you that looks like that. You know what I mean? That's part of it. Okay, you guys? And so what does she do? What does she do? She's camouflaged? What is she? She just sits there, listens, and hands me all this feedback that I pass out to the immediate world. You know what I'm telling you? Okay. And so I'm sure your line's busy all that. You must have Cole waiting. Oh, but of course. And waiting and waiting and waiting. That's right. Yeah, okay. And that's true. You could never get through on her life. And I got to tell the whole world, if you want to go to a hot place, you got to go to Ditka City Lights on Sundays.

7:48They got the greatest single happenings going on there. Have you been there? Oh, of course. I go and check this all out, you know. Right. This is all in Chicago, though. All in Chicago. In Chicago, in the suburbs, there's places in the Burbs that are dynamite. In Evanston, there's a restaurant nobody knows about called Stephen B's, the most romantic, intimate place you could ever want. There is a restaurant out called The Gallery. Do you thrive on this? Honey, I like to be right. I got an ego as big as day. So when all these people... When all these people... I want to talk to Robin. Robin and Frank.

8:25Because telling you what restaurant to go to and who's seen who and all that stuff isn't very harmful. But you have been a victim of gossip. Definitely. Yeah, in what way? Of course I would never admit to being a gossip. Yeah. But I definitely was a victim of gossip. In what way? On the East Coast at a major university, I was competing for a job promotion. And the gentleman that I was competing against spread the word that I was interested in him to the point that I wanted to become intimate with him. But, of course, he didn't want to become intimate with me. And I didn't know anything about this.

9:00Yeah. So the gossip was improved upon. When you hear something that is absolutely not the truth, not the truth, and there's nothing you can do about it. Because you feel like to go around and saying it's not true, it's not true, makes people think, well, what are you screaming about? Well, initially I went and I sought a lawyer's help. But he said that there was no way to, it's a victimless crime. There was no way to trace it back to the root. And the gentleman who spread the word about me eventually got the job over me. but uh to uh this past uh spring he was fired from his job yeah and uh but but the whole thing about it is i don't believe i don't believe that my perception of myself is uh of a loose person yeah i believe that uh basically i'm a girl scout i'm an all-american girl and we could tell now Now that I know where the singles places are, I'm gonna take this girl and go American.

10:02They don't want Girl Scouts, that's the problem.

10:10Greg, you say gossip ruined your marriage? Bottom line, it's like I don't mean to generalize about women or anything like that, because I'm sure men spread just as much gossip, they just don't tell you as much. But what it comes down to is... I don't know about that. I don't know about that, but go ahead, go ahead. What it comes down to is, you know, it goes back to the old thing, you know, if you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all. That's my personal viewpoint on it. And it's a type of, you know, suburban terrorism, if you want to call it that, because you have no way of preventing it, no way of defencing against it, and what it comes down to is...

10:47Yeah, I wonder if it's more prevalent in the suburbs than it is in the urban areas. It seems, you know, I would figure that I lead probably one of the boringest lives of anyone that I know. But the more you protest, the more that everyone believes the gossip. It's not a wig, it's not a wig, it's not a wig. It's not a wig. You get thrown into the gallery before you know it, and the point I'm at now is, you know, my marriage has fallen apart because of it. I've been accused of sleeping with someone that worked with my wife. Yeah. Oh, wow. It just fell apart. And there's no proof? How would I go about proving that you didn't sleep with that?

11:26I have thought of every conceivable way possible to say that you didn't do something, but if someone brings up the point, how do you defend your gossip? Well, I would say there are different types of gossip, like she said. I'll call my friend in Indiana from high school, and she'll tell me about everyone that she knows and sees that I haven't seen in ten, four, five years, and she'll tell me what's going on in their lives, and then the people that I know in Chicago from high school, like my friend, I tell her about what she's doing. So we just keep up on current events more than malicious gossip.

12:00Okay, so you don't do malicious gossip. Well, informative. Okay, so what is the difference between informative and... See, because what you think is informative may be really malicious to someone else. Well, that's true, but I wouldn't ever say, I know this person's having an affair. I would never say anything like that. You would not say that? Who's getting married and who's dating who and why they broke up, maybe, but nothing to the fact of... See, what I never understand is how anybody knows why they broke up if they never talk to those people. Well, I talk to her and she tells me and then I tell my friend.

12:33Great, great. Thanks. Caller, caller, you're on the air. Hello. Yes, I wanted to tell the gentleman who made the comment that men don't gossip. Men, my husband and his business partner have got to be the worst gossips I've ever met in my life. They will talk about anything, anyone, their sex lives, the whole shot. Really? They passed around a rumor that, well, they didn't pass it around. They said it right in front of him, that a friend of theirs was having a menage a trois with two of his workers. And everybody's roaring, but this guy is put on the spot, and then it gets passed around town. Yeah, and by the time it gets around town, it's not a menage a trois.

13:14There's eight people in the back by the time it passes from one to the other. Thanks for bringing up that point. Arthur, gossip has gotten you into a lot of trouble, particularly in high school, I hear. Yeah. Well, see, power is the main thing when it comes to gossip. Once you become a great gossiper, you seek a lot of power. You can change people's grades, you can change their attitude, you can suspend them, and nobody knows why. It's all because of gossip. That's what you did when you were in high school? Kind of, sort of, yeah. Yeah, you were working in the dean's office, I understand. Yes.

13:46Yeah. And so people you did not like, you just changed their grades. The best I could. Vicious, vicious, vicious. What about the woman's comment about men gossiping? You guys were telling me that they do not. They do not? Well, men... My thought on gossiping is kind of my analogy of dye. You know, it's like a fabric and dye. You can submerge different kinds of fabric in a dye, and some of it will be totally absorbed. Some of it won't take it all. It's an interesting theory here. Where did this come from? Anyway, go ahead. Ken just told me this. No, but some of it won't take it all, you know. But it doesn't change the fact that it was still dunked in that die.

14:29Get it? That's my philosophy on rumor, in a sense. But no, I think that in the burbs, like you said, it's more prevalent. Women. Because, let's say, you've got a lot of housewives out there. And I, okay. Oh. Goodness. What an absolute chauvinist thing to say. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Yes, yes, yes. I just want to say that I think you have certain friends that maybe you gossip with more than other friends, like who are a little bit more accepting of it or not. And I'd also like to say that I just think I have a conscience, and then if I'm getting real bad or something about it and I'm gossiping a little bit more than I should be, I'll say, okay, that's it.

15:15you know, I'm really not gonna do this. Don't you feel badly when you do that? Yeah, I do, I do, I feel real bad. And then all of a sudden, the phone will ring and we'll talk, and that person will put me on hold, and when they come back, I say, no, I'm not gonna do it, and bam, there we go again, right back to it, you know? And I really don't want to. Yes. I wanted to answer, I have a theory for the two people right there. Uh, we, I, my theory is social income. A lot of people are from the suburbs and from the city. It's social income. If you listen to people with very low income, Their gossip is a little bit different from people with a high income.

15:46You know, it's totally different. I mean, they talk about two different things. Where we find people of a higher income find, talking about a Mercedes, the best thing in life, people in a lower income talking about surviving and how they can use each other as gossip in a lower income. Do you find that to be true, Nancy? Who wants to know that? You want heavy gossip. You want to know about all the in plastic. Everybody likes plastic. Yes. And I don't have to be Irv Kupsnit. I don't have to be Rona. Those are the things you read about, right? Yeah. And you say, well, that's cool. These people are in the limelight and we're fine now.

16:20But how can you really enjoy that? What I do is the things that you can get to. I can tell you where you can go or where you should be or what kind of music is in and where it's happening. And who made you the authorities, what I'd like to know. I did. You did. Based on everything. Okay. Then I tell it to everyone and they return back to me and tell me that they love what I told them. Okay. I'm not to say I'm not going to be wrong once in a while, but you never read about those places. Okay. You only read about what they want you to read about. Caller, you're on the air. Hi. Oprah, listen, a couple years ago I had just gotten married, and there was a guy who worked with the chain of stores I worked with who was a real gossip.

16:57So I had washed a glass and cut my hand and had my hand bandaged. So I started a rumor about myself with him, and it ended up coming back to me through a friend. He said, I heard you're getting a divorce. I heard Mike pushed you through a plate glass window. So it was great. I started it and it blew up. Yeah, I understand. When we come back, we're going to talk. What did you say? I thought it was funny because I started it just to see how bad this guy would get with it. Yeah. This is what I know, which is very interesting. And the audience and I were talking this morning about why some people gossip and don't.

17:31And I can tell you, I don't ever gossip because I know that everything you put out into the world comes back to you. Just like that story about your hand coming back. everything comes back to you, so that's why I don't want to mess with it.

17:46We've been joined now by a man who specializes in changing negative habits into positive ones. Please welcome psychologist and author of this book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, Dr. Shad Helmstetter. Welcome, Dr. Shad Helmstetter.

18:05Gossip is serious business, isn't it? It certainly is. It's serious both for the person who's the receiver, the victim, but it's equally serious for the person who's doing the gossip. Really? Why? Because gossip is the first sign that you're bored with life. It indicates that things aren't important enough in your life, and the result of that is you begin to create your own soap opera. Good. Is that true? No, not at all. Not at all? Not at all. It is not an indication that you're bored with yourself, and so you create this whole... It is true. It is true. It is true. It is true. That's why I don't do that kind of gossiping, because I'm not bored.

18:47I gossip in a vein where it's ego. You know, you like to know you're right, or if you're turning people on to things, it's gratifying to know when they come back and say dynamite. So what she does, do you classify what Nancy does as gossip? That's more communication of information. It's more like rumor. Gossip has really certain things attached to it. One, it has to be about a person, about somebody. Secondly, it should be of a private nature, something that's really private or personal. And thirdly, it's something that usually brings them down as opposed to building them up. That's real gossip.

19:20Why is it you think that people do it? Because I was saying to this audience before that I hear such incredibly vicious, wrong gossip about myself. For instance, this car rumor that's been going all over the city. I mean, it's just wrong. I don't know where it started from. aware. But the interesting thing is I've heard it in little places and big places. You know, I was in a restaurant on the South Side and the waitress came up and told me. And then I was at a dinner for Prince Charles and the people at that table told me about it. So, I mean, it's all over. But the interesting thing is I always find when people tell you, they act like they're telling you because they care so much about you.

19:54But I always get the sense that they really don't like you either. That's why they're telling you. So why is that? It does create that sense of self-importance that you might not feel you have otherwise. For instance, if I knew a secret and I happen to have a secret about you, now the fact that I used the word secret suddenly made it more important. And by the end of the show, I'll tell the entire audience what that secret is. Now, if I wanted to be really important, I would do that with all kinds of people and that would make me feel more important at that time. And that would only be because I lack enough self-esteem within myself and I have to get it from somebody else.

20:28See, as long as you've got the secret, you're on stage. You're the center of attention. And it doesn't make any difference whether it's true or not. And hopefully, it's something that you cannot really verify. Other than checking out the rumors, like this gentleman was talking about, most gossip we can't really verify. But it just spreads. In fact, if it's not a secret, it's not gossip anymore. It's not interesting. Joyce, do you agree or disagree? I agree wholeheartedly. I think that I started gossiping a long time ago. Yeah. And I've known that I've been a gossip for a long time. And recently I went to a spiritualist who did tell me, in fact, that you talk too much.

21:08And I was totally embarrassed, but I realized that she was right. And it is because of, well, I rationalized that it is because of low self-esteem. I felt I get a rush when somebody tells me something and it's really juicing. I can't wait to get off the phone so I can either tell my sister or my best friend. And do you say don't tell anybody this? But do you ever say that? I don't want you to tell anybody. No, I don't even say that. That rush that she's getting is actually chemical. When we hear the gossip, we actually, chemicals are dumped into our system from the brain that make us more excited.

21:44And when we repeat the gossip, that happens again. So it's a physiological result. And is the worse the gossip is about the other person, the better you feel, Arthur? The worse, I mean, the juicier it is, the worse it is, the bigger the secret, the better you feel? Now that you've pumped it out of me, yeah.

22:05We're talking about gossip this morning, and I understand your marriage almost broke up because of it. It is breaking up. Because of it? Yes. And other things? Mm-hmm. But gossip has played a major role in your marriage breaking? Yes, because I met my husband 12 years ago. And since I met my husband 12 years ago, I have had difficulty in all these years trying to understand him, trying to figure him out, and he doesn't like to communicate to me at all. And he seems like he can't have a complete conversation with anybody. It seems like he's always on the defense. So what do you do? Well, that's when I started gossiping, trying to talk to people, trying to figure out and trying to understand.

22:47Asking other people. what he was doing. Right, so that maybe someone could help me out. And now I have two small children and I'm trying to keep it together and it's really hard. So it's been like, now it's turned into a major habit. Don't you even know that you can't ask other people to tell you something that he won't tell you? You even know that, don't you? I didn't then because it took me a long time to grow up. But now I know now and I'm trying to make up for it and he won't let me. So it's pretty hard. I hope it works out. I'm trying. I asked him today if he wants to work it out, and he says no.