Oprah Winfrey: 'I'm Not a Lesbian'

The rumors have been around for years. She even made light about them recently. But Oprah Winfrey has once again stated flatly: "I'm not a lesbian."

"I'm not even kind of a lesbian," the talk-show queen, 56, tells Barbara Walters in tonight's interview on ABC. "And the reason why [the rumor] irritates me is because it means that somebody must think I'm lying. That's number one. Number two ... why would you want to hide it? That is not the way I run my life."

The rumors have focused on Winfrey's friend Gayle King. But Winfrey says that relationship is extremely close in a whole different way.

"She is ... the mother I never had. She is ... the sister everybody would want. She is the friend that everybody deserves. I don't know a better person. I don't know a better person," Winfrey says while choking up.

"It's making me cry because I'm thinking about ... how much ... I probably have never told her that. Tissue, please. I now need tissue. I've never told her that."

The occasion for the interview, airing tonight at 9:00 pm (ET) on ABC, is the end of Winfrey's syndicated show next May and the beginning of her new cable network – OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network.

On that subject, Winfrey admits to having been afraid of how daunting the new project is. "I was very scared," she says. "I would wake up in the middle of the night literally like clutching my chest, like, 'What have I done? What have I done?'"

Anonymous Woman Claims Christina Aguilera Propositioned Her in Gay Bar

A woman claims that she was propositioned by Christina Aguilera at a popular gay bar in LA. According to the woman, Aguilera, who just filed for divorce from her husband earlier this week, was told that the singer was in an open marriage.

RadarOnline reports:

“I was at The Abbey one night when Christina’s bodyguard approached me,” a woman who wishes to remain anonymous told RadarOnline.com.

“He said, ‘My boss would really like you’ and pointed over to Christina.” The source said Christina waved to her, but that she was confused because her husband Jordan was at the bar with her. “The bodyguard told me it was an understanding within their marriage and that she brings girls home and Jordan’s okay with it,” the woman said. “I met Christina in the bathroom and she told me she liked to play with girls. “I ended up not pursuing anything with it because the situation just seemed so weird to me, but Christina was definitely looking to hook up.”

According to the source, Christina has been known to frequently approach women while out at gay bars in Los Angeles. “It’s funny because I had a couple girlfriends tell me that they were approached by Christina too,” the source said. “My understanding was that Jordan wasn’t involved when she brought girls home."

Back in May, Aguilera told Out Magazine that, while she finds women attractive, there's one thing she can't live without: "My husband knows that I get into girls. I think it's fun to be open and play. The line is real to me. My husband and I check in with each other, but I definitely love women. I think they're more attractive to the naked eye. I don't think I could ever really be with a woman...And you know, I love dick. To be honest, that I cannot live without."

Kitty Kelley Biography Explores Oprah's 'Secrets'

In her latest unauthorized celebrity biography, Kitty Kelley takes on Oprah Winfrey, and aims to shed some light on a woman who is hugely famous and powerful but who Kelley says keeps much of her real self hidden from view.

"There are so many secrets in her life," Kelley, 68, said Monday on NBC's Today show. "Secrets about her relationship, secrets within her family."

Kelley was unable to talk to Winfrey, 56, for the book but scoured countless interviews the talk-show queen has given through the years, and also quotes friends, family members and employees – some on the record, others not – to get a glimpse inside Winfrey's closely guarded world.

Among the more personal topics Kelley attempts to address: whether Winfrey is gay, and the extent of the sexual abuse she suffered as a girl.

On the issue of whether Winfrey and best friend Gayle King are lesbian partners, Kelley concludes there is "no foundation for the rumors of a lesbian relationship." But in excerpts published by USA Today, Kelley quotes Rosie O'Donnell (from a 2009 Howard Stern interview) saying Winfrey and King are the "emotional equivalent of a gay couple," and author Erica Jong saying, "I would not be surprised if Oprah is gay."

Questionable Motives

Likewise, Kelley says Winfrey was molested as a girl, but quotes Katharine Carr Esters, an 81-year-old cousin of Winfrey's, who questions that assertion.

"I don't believe a bit of it," Esters tells Kelley. "No one in the family believes her stories [of sexual abuse], but now that she's so rich and powerful everyone is afraid to contradict her."

But as The New Yorker points out, Esters's motives could be questionable, as she reportedly holds a grudge stemming from Winfrey's failure to help her publicize a memoir.

Kelley also claims that Esters told her who Winfrey's real father is – but that she left that out of the book because Winfrey's mother has been unwilling to tell her daughter over the years.

Kelley claims to be having trouble getting booked for interviews about the biography, saying everyone from Barbara Walters to Larry King to David Letterman have turned down her publisher's requests. But at the core, she says, her book is uplifting.

"I can't think of a better life story [than Oprah's]," she says. "You come away being inspired."